


Elaborate Ruses

by MilkMoustachesAreCool



Category: Nothing Much to Do
Genre: Fake/Pretend Relationship, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2015-07-12
Packaged: 2018-04-07 11:38:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 21,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4261962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MilkMoustachesAreCool/pseuds/MilkMoustachesAreCool
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beatrice clicked on Hero’s latest video out of habit – she always watched her cousin’s videos as soon as they’d been put up. It wasn’t until it started playing that she realised what it actually was.</p><p>“Eurgh,” she exclaimed, as though the video was physically making her ill. She pushed the laptop away but obviously that didn’t stop what was happening on the screen. She reached over to try and hit pause, or close the window, or anything to make it stop, but her computer was being glitchy and the video kept playing. Even worse, now Hero and Claudio were actually kissing on the screen. Beatrice gagged and slammed the laptop closed to make it stop. The audio kept playing or a few seconds though, and Beatrice got the fright of her life when she heard Pedro’s voice.</p><p>----</p><p>In which Beatrice sees the Love Gods video straight after it's been put up, and she and Ben want revenge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. EURGH

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so I really don't know where I'm going with this, I'm just sort of going with it and seeing where it ends up. Bear with me!
> 
> Oh and obviously it's splits from canon after the Team Love Gods video.

Beatrice clicked on Hero’s latest video out of habit – she always watched her cousin’s videos as soon as they’d been put up. It wasn’t until it started playing that she realised what it actually was.

“Eurgh,” she exclaimed, as though the video was physically making her ill. She pushed the laptop away but obviously that didn’t stop what was happening on the screen. She reached over to try and hit pause, or close the window, or anything to make it stop, but her computer was being glitchy and the video kept playing. Even worse, now Hero and Claudio were actually kissing on the screen. Beatrice gagged and slammed the laptop closed to make it stop. The audio kept playing or a few seconds though, and Beatrice got the fright of her life when she heard Pedro’s voice.

“Alright well if that hasn’t turned Beatrice and Bene–” and the computer finally went to sleep.

Of course, now Beatrice was trying desperately to start the computer up again and find out what Pedro had been doing in a video of Hero and Claudio, and why he had been talking about her.

After a bit of a struggle with her old, glitchy computer, Beatrice finally managed to get the video to play again. This time she skipped through the first fifteen seconds or so and ended up looking at all of her friends, sitting in Hero’s room looking at the camera.

“What?” she muttered to herself, utterly perplexed. She watched on however, and what she saw did not help her mood in anyway.

When the video was over, she was unsure how to react. Firstly, the thought of being set up with Benedick was nauseating. Secondly, she was so angry with her friends for even suggesting it, and for thinking they could actually pull it off, and with Hero for going along with it. And she was a bit hurt that they were sitting there talking about her behind her back acting as if they knew what was best for her. They were supposed to be her friends. On the other hand, however, she had to admit that she was a little bit proud. She never would have thought anyone in that group was capable of coming up with such an ambitious scheme. 

Through all her mixed emotions however, one thought was constant: she really wanted to get back at them somehow. Show them just who they were messing with.

At first she was in two minds as to whether or not to tell the Dick. Maybe it would be funnier to see if their plan actually worked on him. It would certainly give her the upper hand in their weird little war, but it would also mean that there would be a wildcard on the table, which would make it harder for her to extract her revenge on the so called Team ‘Love Gods’. And she definitely wanted to get back at them.

Eventually she decided that telling Benedick was the best course of action. After all, he would be just as annoyed as her and would want revenge too. They could work together. True, they didn’t get along well these days, but Beatrice knew that if she was going to team up with someone to get revenge, Ben was probably the best option. The two of them working together on the same side could take anyone down.

That was how, fifteen minutes later, she found herself knocking on Benedick’s door. She hadn’t been to his house since she was fourteen but it still looked pretty much the same. Benedick opened the door himself and was clearly shocked to see Beatrice standing there on the doorstep.

“Beatrice, what are you doing here?” he asked, genuinely surprised. Of course, once he’d gotten over the surprise (which took all of 2.5 seconds) he couldn’t help landing a blow. “Just couldn’t handle being away from me? I understand, I’m irresista–” He didn’t finish his sentence because Beatrice had already pushed past him (emphasis on the push) and walked straight to his bedroom.

“So that’s how it is, eh?” he joked, waggling his eyebrows.

“Oh my God you idiot, shut up!” exclaimed Beatrice. “Where’s your laptop?”

“Why do you want it?” asked Benedick.

“To skype the Dalai Lama,” responded Beatrice sarcastically. “Because I need to show you something obviously!” Beatrice found the laptop underneath some notes on Benedick’s desk and opened it up, clicking into YouTube straight away. She pulled up Hero’s latest video.

“What is this, some weird new way of torturing me?” questioned Benedick. “There is no way I am watching that video, you can’t make m–” he stopped talking when the screen changed to all their friends sitting there in Hero’s bedroom. His mouth hung open as he watched the rest of the video.

When it finished, the room was silent for a minute. Beatrice just sat there smugly watching Benedick’s reaction, and Benedick didn’t even have words for what he had just watched.

“But…” Ben’s eyes moved slowly from the screen until they landed on Beatrice. His face contorted. “Eeeewwwwwww,” he dragged out the sound as he looked at her.

“Trust me, the feeling’s mutual,” she assured him as she closed the laptop again. “But all that aside, we need to get back at them, right?”

“Oh definitely. Yeah. Do you have any ideas?” asked Benedick.

“I don’t know, honestly I’m still processing that they actually thought they would be able to pull this off,” replied Beatrice.

“Clearly they didn’t account for my incredible wit,” said Benedick cockily.

Beatrice rolled her eyes. “Who was it again that actually found about it in the first place? Oh yeah, me.”

“As a matter of fact actually,” asked Benedick, “what were you doing watching that video in the first place? Gone soft have you? Hopeless romantic? Looking for Prince Charming?”

“Yeah right,” scoffed Beatrice. “It was a mistake, obviously.”

“If you say so,” sang Benedick sceptically.

“I do.”

“Well someone’s in a bad mood,” muttered Benedick. Beatrice rounded on him.

“Of course I’m in a bad mood, our friends want to set us up! Now come on, revenge ideas. We need to brainstorm.”

Benedick rolled his eyes and flopped down on his bed. “Fine. We could, I don’t know, put frogs in their beds?”

“Frogs? What?”

“I don’t know, I read it in a book.”

“Where would we find six frogs? And that’s probably animal cruelty. That’s an awful idea Ben.”

“Fine, you come up with one then.”

Beatrice thought. “Well it should be something related to this whole plot of theirs – like, not just a random act of revenge, a very pointed one.”

Benedick sat up. “Yeah, you’re right,” he said, an idea dawning him. “What if – oh my God Beatrice we should break Claudio and Hero up. They want to set us up, the opposite of that is breaking them up! It’s genius!”

“Ben. Benedick. We are not breaking Claudio and Hero up. For so many reasons. Hero's my cousin, I'm not going to break her heart. Plus, that would only get back at those two, and it seems like Pedro was the main culprit behind the plot anyway. Well and Ursula, who actually came up with their strategy. So we are not doing that.”

But Beatrice’s words had given Benedick a new idea. “No wait Beatrice, I’ve got it,” he said excitedly. Beatrice waited for him to continue before shutting down whatever stupid idea he probably had. “You don’t want to break Hero’s heart. It’s perfect! Okay so what if…before you shoot me down just listen to the whole plan, okay?” Beatrice nodded. “What if we just let them go ahead with their plan right, and let them think it’s working. Like pretend to fall for each other, and eventually start dating–”

“Ben I am not dating you,” said Beatrice flatly.

“No, no, listen. Not dating, fake dating right? Just lull them into a false sense of security by letting them think they’ve won, that their plan has worked right? I’m sure we can pretend to like each other for a week or two, right?”

“But what would be the point of all this? That would just give them the satisfaction of being right.”

“Ah yes, until, that is, we have a huge, massive fight in front of everyone – something we can’t get past, something we break up over – and we’re both completely heartbroken and just so, so sad and there’s nothing anyone can do, and they realise it’s all their fault. Think how guilty they’d feel!”

Beatrice had to admit, the plan had appeal – apart from the whole dating Ben part, but she could get past that if it was only for a week or two.

“We could make it even better," said Beatrice thoughtfully. "Really make them think it’s their fault. Like, when we ‘break up’, we could just start going on and on to them about like, how stupid we were, and be all ‘oh, how did I ever think this would work? I don’t even know why I got with him, I used to hate him. I should’ve known it would end this way’ right? Like really make a point of how we don't know why we got together in the first place, and then they’ll be thinking like shit, the only reason they got together in the first place was because of us and now they’re both heartbroken and it’s all our fault.”

“Beatrice?” Ben raised his eyebrows. “I think we have a plan.”

They hi-fived, then awkwardly tried to put the too-close-to-friendship moment behind them as they sat down to work out the particulars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bleurgh okay I'm really not sure where I'm going with this and I'm not writing very coherently but sure I'll see where it goes. Next chapter should be up soon enough.


	2. HI-FIVE

Beatrice and Benedick had constructed their plan perfectly, down to the tiniest detail, so when Benedick overheard his friends talking about how Beatrice liked him, he wasn’t surprised in the least. He was, however, a little shocked at the things they said about him – were that many adjectives really necessary? Nonetheless, he made the vlogs he and Beatrice had discussed (not even the internet would get to know of their epic plan until it was all over - after all, that had been Team Love Gods big mistake). He acted shocked at first, but then slowly gave the impression that the idea was growing on him.

Likewise Beatrice had a bit of a shock when she heard how mean her friends were about her as part of their big plan, but that just made her more determined to extract her revenge. Unfortunately, her pride was stronger than Benedick’s and wouldn’t allow her to admit to anything on camera at first.

When all had been uploaded, Benedick and Beatrice had to admit that they were very good actors. The comments on their videos showed that their viewers had bought it completely – and if they felt guilty for deceiving such a large number of people, they rationalised it by saying that none of these people even knew them or would be directly affected by their lie. Plus they couldn’t help but feel a little smug when they saw their friends whispering, clearly discussing their videos. They were proud to have fooled them.

The hard part came after that, however. Now they had to actually start dating. After much discussion (aka arguing) about who should ask who out, they decided that the fairest way would be to act as if it was a mutual thing. They had already stopped bickering in school, and even done little things such as avoiding eye contact, or jumping when they brushed hands (they really were very committed to this plan, and not ashamed to admit that it was a little fun). All that was left was to seal the deal.

They decided on the library, because it was the easiest place to let their friends find out about it. Hero, Ursula and Balthazar always studied in the library after school together, and Claudio tended to go just to be with Hero. Pedro often tagged along as well to keep Balthazar company, and now and then Robbie and Meg would go too, just to make out in the less popular aisles.

On one such day when all the gang ended up in the library, Beatrice and Benedick laid their trap. Beatrice went in first and purposefully walked by where her friends were sitting studying, acting as if she hadn’t noticed them. She jumped when Hero called her name.

“Beatrice,” whispered Hero. “Beatrice, what are you doing here?” she asked.

Beatrice turned around, schooling her face into a somewhat guilty expression. “Oh, I um, I just needed to get a book – for history, you know. The assignment.”

Hero nodded and tried to hide a smile. “The history section is back there,” she pointed with her pencil.

Beatrice nodded distractedly. “Right. Yeah, right,” she said. “I knew that, I just – I haven’t been here in ages.” She rolled her eyes at herself and headed back the way she came towards the history section.

Not long after that, Benedick entered the library. He acted as though he was trying to be stealthy, but still drew the attention of all his friends. They pretended not to see him however, as he strolled through the aisles, trying to act casual. When he drew near the aisle that Beatrice was in, all of Team Love Gods skirted around him unseen (or so they thought) into the aisle behind Beatrice, where they pushed certain books aside to give them a clear vantage point.

Benedick finally came to Beatrice’s aisle, where Beatrice was apparently searching for a book, although her eyes kept darting around the room as if she was looking for someone.

“Beatrice,” said Benedick awkwardly. “Fancy seeing you here!”

Beatrice jumped a little and looked at her feet, pushing her hair away from her face. “Ben, hey, what’s up?”

“Oh, not much,” replied Ben, trying to act casual again. “Just looking for a book. Like you do. In the library. What about you, what are you up to?”

“Oh yeah, you know, the same, really,” Beatrice laughed awkwardly, fidgeting and glancing up at Ben’s face then away again.

“Cool, cool,” responded Ben, who was clearly not looking for a book. “What – um, what book are you looking for?”

“Oh, I – I’m pretty sure they don’t have it,” said Beatrice lamely, shrugging her shoulders. She was still casually searching the bookshelves, but as she did so she had drawn closer and closer to Ben. If she moved any further she would bump into him. She stopped short and looked up at him.

“Yeah, I don’t think they have mine either,” replied Ben, his mind clearly not on books, as he and Bea stared into each other’s eyes, apparently unaware of the world around them.

Then, out of nowhere, Ben leaned down and Bea leaned up and before anyone knew what was happening, they had kissed and were both looking awkwardly at anything but each other. Hero very nearly gasped out loud but luckily Meg was there to stop her.

It was just a peck on the lips, too quick to even notice really, but it had the desired effect on Team Love Gods. Operation Flamingo (name still under discussion) was well and truly under way.

The two plotters left straight away, trying to hide smug grins as they walked past their friends’ hiding place. Once they got out the door they shared a quick hi-five (that was really becoming too much of a habit for either of them to be comfortable with it) and walked in opposite directions.

Hero didn’t say anything when she got home, and none of the others seemed to mention it (which was a miracle really). The next day, however, Beatrice and Ben made sure that Pedro saw them holding hands under the table in physics. They made sure Claudio saw a text Ben sent to Bea. Ursula was privy to some very obvious eye contact in English. Balthazar caught them whispering to each other at the lockers. Hero saw Bea flicking through Facebook photos of Ben on her phone. Meg watched Ben spend all of maths staring at the back of Bea’s head.

When lunchtime came around, everyone saw Ben and Bea try to subtly link their hands without anyone noticing. Needless to say, everyone noticed. That was when it started – the gloating, the smugness, the self-please attitude of all their friends. A lot of teasing ensued but Beatrice and Benedick were more than prepared. They rolled their eyes and acted annoyed, but realistically this was all part of their plan.

“Fine, you know what?” demanded Ben at the end of lunch. “Yes. I really like Beatrice, and she really likes me, and I don’t see what the problem is with that. So if you could all just drop it and try to let us actually be happy about this, instead of embarrassed and awkward, that would be great.”

“Yeah, besides,” added Beatrice. “I don’t know what you all have to be so smug about it’s not like you actually did anything or played any part in this. All that happened was two people changing their minds. You had nothing to do with it. So stop acting so proud.”

The group were delighted by this statement – as Beatrice and Benedick knew they would be (after all, phase one of this plan was to make Team Love Gods as smug and proud as possible to make the fall even worse at the end). They couldn’t help sharing knowing looks at Beatrice’s statement, allowing themselves small grins, because little did Bea and Ben know, but they actually had everything to do with them getting together. And they couldn’t be prouder.

When the others all left the lunch table to go to class, Bea and Ben hung back. The others all let them, convinced they wanted time alone to make out or something. Instead, they just shared another hi-five (seriously, this was getting out of control).

“Nice work Hobbes,” said Beatrice cordially.

“Not bad yourself, Duke,” replied Benedick, matching her tone for friendliness.

“I think we’re pretty good at this,” commented Beatrice.

“And Oscar-worthy performance, I’d say,” agreed Benedick.

“This is not the time to get smug though,” warned Beatrice. “We need to stay on top of our game, make sure they’re really buying it.”

“You do realise we’re going to have to do more than just a peck on the lips and admitting that we like each other in the future right?” asked Ben. “That just won’t cut it anymore. We really have to commit.”

“I know,” scowled Beatrice. “We made the plans together, I’m well aware of what they entail. We’ll deal with those things when we get to them.”

“Just making sure. I mean you could back out now if you wanted,” said Benedick condescendingly.

“You think I can’t handle it?” demanded Beatrice fiercely.

“I don’t know, I mean not everyone has the same level of skill and commitment to these kinds of plots as I do,” said Benedick cockily.

Beatrice hi-fived him again. This time it didn’t feel weird. She had to admit that hi-fiving Benedick was much more enjoyable when she aimed for his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I had just written all of this out when I realised that hi-five should probably actually be spelled high-five? But I'm way too lazy to go back and find them and change them (I know, I know, it wouldn't really take that long, but I'm really tired right now!) So just ignore that please.


	3. PIZZA

The next few days in school weren’t enjoyable for Beatrice and Benedick. They were forced to sit next to each other in class whenever they could (without bickering) and there was far too much hand holding involved for either of them to be comfortable. They were both committed, however, and neither of them was willing to be the first to back out of the deal. They simply grit their teeth and carried on like it didn’t phase them.

But things didn’t get any easier from there. By the time the week was out, Hero had insisted that Beatrice and Benedick join herself and Claudio on a double date. Beatrice had tried everything she could think of to talk her way out of it, but Hero was too excited by the prospect to listen to a word her cousin said.

When Beatrice finally gave in she expected Hero to force her into a hideous dinner at a fancy restaurant or something, but luckily Hero seemed to have Beatrice’s happiness in mind too. She decided that the best way to please everyone would be to do something fun. She invited Claudio and Ben over on Saturday evening in the hopes of having a fun, light-hearted evening making pizzas. After all, cooking was bound to be funny and eliminate any awkwardness or tension, and who could be unhappy when faced with pizza? It seemed fool proof.

Until, that is, Claudio and Ben finally arrived and they looked up a recipe. Apparently they needed a lot more time than they had. Luckily, Ben and Beatrice saw this as an opportunity to alleviate some of the pressure of this whole ‘date’ idea.

“Well I still want pizza,” said Ben stubbornly.

“Yeah, we should just go buy some and eat it. We can watch a movie or something,” chimed in Beatrice.

“Yeah that sounds good, huh Hero?” said Claudio, wrapping his arms around Hero’s waist. Hero pouted but she nodded in agreement.

“Aw, tell you what,” piped up Beatrice. “We should just get loads of pizza and tell everyone to come around – we can have a proper pizza party.”

Everyone seemed to like that idea, so the texts were sent out and the pizza was bought and an hour later the whole gang was sitting silently on the living room floor and wolfing down pizzas. It certainly couldn't be called a date anymore.

After the pizza was gone, however (which didn’t take long), they began to seek entertainment in other areas. Unfortunately Benedick and Beatrice had not foreseen that those areas would revolve around their new-formed relationship.

“Alright how about a game?” asked Benedick innocently when the food was all gone.

“Yeah alright, what should we play?” agreed Meg sitting up. She loved games.

“How about truth or dare?” suggested Pedro (as usual).

And (as usual) everyone protested. “We all know there’s no point,” said Benedick. “We all just pick truth and then lie about the answer.”

“Fine, Benedick, truth or dare?” asked Pedro pointedly, turning to face Benedick.

Ben considered for a moment then answered, “Truth.”

“Everyone picks truth,” conceded Pedro. “What’s this then?” he asked, motioning to Ben and Beatrice. There was a silence for a moment, then Ben leaned back and wrapped his arm around Beatrice.

“This is two people realising that maybe olives aren’t so bad after all,” he said complacently.

“What?” demanded Beatrice, sitting up and extracting herself from Ben’s arm. “I hate olives. This is nothing to do with olives.”

“Fine then Bea, what is it?” Hero turned the tables on Beatrice.

Beatrice turned to smile up at Benedick, their eyes meeting (although no one else could see the knowing glint they shared) and answered the question. “This is two people who have realised that if they put their pride aside they could be really happy.”

“And they are,” said Benedick, still smiling at Beatrice, who had reached over to hold his hand.

"That's called maturity," added Beatrice pointedly, looking around the rooms at their interfering friends.

Everyone avoided Beatrice's eyes, staring awkwardly at the ground, unable to defend themselves. Pedro eventually broke the silence however.

“No come on, you still haven’t answered the question. What is it? Are you guys exclusive? Are you just hanging out? Are you officially together? Ben, is Beatrice your girlfriend?”

Ben turned to Beatrice again. “Do you want to be my girlfriend?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

Beatrice considered for a moment. “Do you want to be my boyfriend?”

Benedick rolled his eyes. “Well I mean, I don’t hate the idea. Do you?”

“No, I definitely don’t hate it,” replied Beatrice, acting somewhat cautious but also a little teasing.

“Fine then, will you be my girlfriend?” asked Benedick straight out.

Beatrice shrugged. “Yeah, alright,” she replied.

They then both broke out into grins and hi-fived each other.

“Guys, you know that isn’t the way to seal the deal,” piped up Meg, raising her eyebrows suggestively.

Beatrice rolled her eyes. “Unlike some people Meg, we aren’t huge fans of PDA,” she said pointedly. Meg shrugged it off, used to comments like that from Bea.

“Nah, Meg’s right,” said Balthazar. “You know we’ll never really believe this until we see it with our own eyes.” Everyone laughed and nodded in agreement.

Benedick rolled his eyes and leaned towards Bea, putting a finger under her chin and turning her head to look at him. “Fine then, believe this,” he said, before placing his mouth over Beatrice’s. It didn’t last long, but it was definitely longer than their kiss in the library. And more intense. This time they both parted their lips and their tongues touched briefly before they parted to the sound of their friends cheering.

They stayed in that position for a moment longer than necessary. Beatrice needed a moment to recover from that kiss – she had not been expecting to enjoy it so much, or to feel anything. But she did. Unlike Ben of course, who she was sure was just keeping the act up.

But Benedick couldn’t move for a moment after the kiss either. He felt locked in place. His mind was somehow completely empty and swirling with thoughts at the same time. Had he really just kissed Beatrice? Had he really just enjoyed kissing Beatrice? He hadn’t been prepared for this. Nonetheless, Beatrice was just following the plan, making it realistic. He would have to file this moment away for analysis at a later time.

Benedick broke eye contact first, removing his finger from Beatrice’s chin and shrugging casually as he turned to face the group. Beatrice followed suit.

Now that that was over, the group needed to find entertainment elsewhere.

“Alright but like for realsies, can we play a good game?” asked Meg. “Ooh, can we make it really fun and get some drinks?”

Beatrice and Hero made eye contact to consider this proposal from across the room. Leo was away for the night, there was no reason not to. It wasn’t how they had pictured the evening going but so far the evening had turned out nothing like they had planned anyway. Everyone seemed enthusiastic about Meg’s idea, so they both decided they might as well.

“Alright Pedro, if I give you some money will you run down to the shops and pick some drinks up?” asked Beatrice.

“Maybe some snacks too?” suggested Claudio.

“You basically just ate an entire pizza yourself,” pointed out Hero.

Claudio merely shrugged. “Does anyone here really object to snacks?” he asked the room.

Everyone shook their heads, grinning. Hero rolled her eyes and admitted defeat, turning to give her boyfriend a quick kiss.

“Alright, what drinks do we want?” asked Pedro as he put his shoes on. “Beer?”

“Eurgh, no beer,” said Beatrice, wrinkling her nose.

“Tequila!” cried Meg, sitting up and putting her arms up in the air in true Meg fashion.

“How about some wine coolers or something?” suggested Hero hopefully.

Pedro turned to Beatrice and raised his eyes, giving her the final decision.

“I don’t mind, just make sure it’s cheap and make sure there’s enough to go around,” she said, handing Pedro her wallet. “And try not to get something anyone will hate?”

From the other side of the room, Balthazar stood up. “I’ll go with you and help you choose, and carry it back,” he said, grabbing his jacket. The two boys headed out the door and down the road towards the shop.

“I wonder what they’ll get?” mused Hero.

“If it was just Pedro I’d say probably just beer, but if Balthazar’s there too he’ll probably try and get something everyone would like,” said Beatrice.

“I just hope it’s something fun,” whined Meg. “I want tequila!”

Everyone laughed and waited for the boys’ return, passing the time by chatting and poking fun at one another.

Twenty minutes later they returned, a shopping bag concealing their purchases. They opened the door and pulled some bottles out of the bag.

“Who wants vodka?” asked Pedro, waving it around.

“It was cheapest, and it seemed pretty fool proof, who doesn’t drink vodka?” shrugged Balthazar as he handed Beatrice’s wallet and change back to her.

Beatrice glanced over at Hero. Her younger cousin wasn’t as much of a drinker as her older friends, she usually avoided spirits. Hero merely shrugged however – some vodka wouldn’t kill her after all, and she knew she could handle her drink.

Drinks were poured, snacks opened and seats found.

“Alright so what game will we play?” asked Meg excitedly.


	4. PARANOIA

“Well I’m still voting for truth or dare,” muttered Pedro sulkily.

“No!” chorused the whole room.

“Never have I ever?” suggested Meg.

“There’s no point, we all already know everything everyone’s done,” said Beatrice.

“How about kings?” suggested Benedick.

“Ugh, I’m not in the mood, maybe later,” said Pedro, before adding another suggestion. “You know you can play would you rather as a drinking game?”

“How would that even work?” asked Beatrice incredulously. “No, you know what? I don’t even want to know. I don’t want an excuse to argue with everyone tonight.”

“Argue with Ben more like,” muttered Claudio. Beatrice flashed him an evil glance but was distracted when Ursula spoke.

“I’ve actually read of a game that could be kind of interesting?” she suggested hesitantly.

“Interesting? That sounds promising,” said Meg, getting excited. “What is it?”

“It’s called paranoia,” began Ursula.

“Paranoia – that already sounds like fun,” grinned Meg.

“Alright, well since Meg already seems committed, why don’t you tell us how to play Ursula?” said Bea.

“Well basically we all sit in a circle, and so we take it in turns to ask the person next to us a question, but the answer to the question has to be someone in this room. So like, I could ask who would be the most likely to be president someday, or who has the prettiest hair, or who you trust the most – anything that can be answered with the name of someone in this room. So I whisper my question to the person next to me and only they know what the question is, then they say their answer out loud. Then if they say your name and you want to know what the question was you have to drink. But you can decide not to find out and not drink. It all just depends on how much you want to know what you were picked for.”

Everyone seemed to like the idea of the game, although more than one person was a little nervous. They arranged themselves in a circle on the floor, drinks in hand and possible questions popping into their minds.

Meg decided that she would start the game, predictable as always. She leaned over to Ursula who was sitting to her left and whispered something in her ear. Ursula looked around the room in thought for a moment, before choosing her answer.

“Pedro,” she said.

Everyone turned to look at Pedro. His ears had turned red.

“Well Pedro? Do you want to know what the question was or not?” demanded Meg.

Pedro considered for a moment, before deciding. “Okay, I need to know,” he laughed, then took a drink.

“Alright the question I asked was (drumroll please),” said Meg dramatically, “Who in this room would you like to get a back rub or massage from?”

There was silence for a moment as Pedro’s brow furrowed in confusion, before he turned to Ursula.

“Why would you pick me for that?” he demanded, his voice becoming a little high pitched.

Ursula merely shrugged. “Your hands look strong. Good for getting rid of tension.”

The room erupted in laughter at Ursula’s matter-of-fact response.

“Oh, I definitely like this game,” said Bea as she wiped away the water that had collected in the corner of her eye. “Alright Ursula, your turn.”

The game continued on around the circle. The questions stayed mostly tame at first – Hero asked Ben who he wished he was closer to. He responded with Balthazar.

“I mean I know I know you man, I just sometimes wish we were a bit closer, y’know?” he explained when Balthazar asked to hear the question.

Pedro asked Meg who she would want with her if she was stranded on a desert island. She responded with Ursula.

“You’d just be the most useful Ursula, you know so much random shit. You’d keep me alive.”

But as the game went on and the drinks were drunk, they all started getting more creative with their questions.

Balthazar asked Claudio who he would eat first if they were starving during the apocalypse. He eventually decided on Meg after much deliberation. Meg was appalled when she demanded to hear the question, but Claudio quickly explained that it was just by process of elimination that he landed on her.

“Obviously I wouldn’t eat Hero,” he began. “Ben’s too skinny, there isn’t enough meat on him to make him worth it. Beatrice would fight so hard it wouldn’t be worth it. Pedro has too much muscle – no good meat. Ursula would be too valuable, she knows so much stuff. And Balthazar’s just too tiny, you wouldn’t get any meat off him at all.”

Meg still wasn’t pleased but the game moved on anyway.

Some questions, of course, went by without being said out loud at all – which was lucky, in some cases.

Ben’s turn came at one point and he leaned over, cupping his hand around Beatrice’s ear.

“Out of everyone here, who would you pick to be your lesbian lover in the future? For the rest of your life, like,” he whispered.

Bea couldn’t help herself from laughing at the ridiculous question. It was a tough choice. All the guys were obviously out. Hero was her favourite person, but Beatrice definitely wasn’t into incest so that ruled her out. That left it between Meg and Ursula. A tough call – Meg definitely had more sex appeal, she was very experienced and cared about looking her best, but Ursula was the better option intellectually. Eventually Ursula had to win out, because if Bea was going to spend the rest of her life with someone it would have to be someone who could talk about things other than boys and make up and partying and herself (not that Bea didn’t love Meg, just maybe not for the rest of her life).

But Ursula chose not to hear the question anyway, which was a great relief to Bea because explaining her reasoning there could have gotten embarrassing (and Meg would probably have gotten offended).

As the game continued it certainly got more interesting. After a few rounds, a few seat changes and quite a few drinks, it came around to Beatrice’s turn again, and she had her question for Balthazar ready to go.

“Alright, if you had to lose your virginity to someone in this room, who would it be?”

Balthazar looked as if he was considering it for a moment, before answering. “Pedro,” he said finally. Beatrice raised her eyebrows, but she wasn't really surprised. This was Balthazar, after all.

Everyone looked at Pedro expectantly.

“Yeah alright, what was the question?” he asked.

Balthazar immediately turned red. He had thought he was safe – apart from Meg’s first question, Pedro hadn’t asked to hear a single question he was picked for. Of course he hadn’t been chosen by Balthazar at all yet either, but that wouldn't make a difference, right?

Balthazar stammered awkwardly, unable to get the words out. Bea took over for him.

“I asked Balthazar, out of the people in this room, who he would lose his virginity to if he had to,” she said simply.

Pedro’s eyes widened and his ears turned red. He stared at Balthazar, but a half smile crept on to his face. It seemed as though he didn’t mind that Balthazar had chosen him. This was lost on Balthazar, however, who was staring at his shoes awkwardly, trying to desperately to come up with a way to laugh it off.

“Well Claudio’s with Hero and Ben’s with Bea, so I figured I’d have to go for the only single guy in the room,” shrugged Balthazar with an awkward laugh after a moment, finally looking up. He managed to glimpse the moment when Pedro’s face turned from looking vaguely pleased to something that looked suspiciously like disappointment.

The others were still looking awkwardly between the two of them. They weren’t surprised by Balthazar’s answer, but they did feel bad for him. He obviously hadn’t meant for Pedro to hear that. His attempt at covering up may have worked on Pedro, but it definitely didn’t work on anyone else.

“Anyway, my turn now,” said Balthazar loudly (or as loudly as Balthazar ever spoke), as if nothing had happened. He turned to Hero and whispered a question in her ear. The others slowly but surely stopped staring and settled back into the game, although the atmosphere in the room had certainly changed since that last question.

The game was brought to an end not long after that, however, with an unfortunate question. The drinks were nearly gone and the clock showed that it was nearly midnight (Beatrice and Hero had ended up inviting them all to stay over). The circle had changed a few times during the game, and now Beatrice was sitting between Hero and Meg. It was Meg’s turn and she leaned over to whisper her question in Beatrice’s ear.

“Who do you think is the best kisser in the room?” she asked.

Beatrice was more than tipsy at this point and didn’t think too hard before answering the question.

“Pedro,” she said after a moment’s deliberation. “Definitely Pedro.”

Meg was clearly surprised, but Beatrice didn’t notice. Pedro (who had demanded to hear every question he was chosen for after Balthazar’s surprise confession) demanded to hear the question as he finished his drink.

“Meg asked me who the best kisser here is,” Beatrice informed the room. Half of her friends looked confused, the other half looked sympathetically at Ben.

“What?” demanded Ben suddenly. “How would you even know how good a kisser Pedro is?”

“I’ve kissed Pedro before,” said Bea simply, still oblivious to everyone's was reactions.

“When?” Ben’s voice had become unusually high-pitched.

“I don’t know, some stupid party when we were like fourteen,” replied Beatrice casually. “We were playing spin the bottle. I’m pretty sure I kissed Balthazar as well.”

“You did,” confirmed Balthazar from the corner, still staring at Beatrice in horror at what she had said.

That confession of course caused another reaction from Pedro. “You kissed Beatrice?” he demanded suddenly of Balthazar.

Benedick had also turned in horror to look at Balthazar.

Balthazar simply shrugged. “You were there man. It was spin the bottle. No big deal.”

It was clearly a big deal to Pedro (and Benedick), however. Pedro’s mouth hung open and he couldn’t stop staring at Balthazar, a look of slight hurt on his face. Balthazar had gone completely red and was avoiding eye contact with Pedro by playing with the buttons on the cuffs of his shirt.

Meanwhile, Benedick had turned back to Beatrice to continue interrogating her. “So you’re saying that Pedro’s a better kisser than me?” he demanded.

“Ugh, I don’t know, I don’t really know what a good kisser is anyway, I’m not that experienced in the art of kissing!"

“So why did you pick Pedro then?” Ben’s voice had gone so high-pitched that he now sounded like a little girl.

“I was trying to think of the best kiss I ever had and I always thought that that kiss with Pedro was pretty good, I don’t know why. Probably because –”

“That was the best kiss you ever had?” asked Pedro, finally turning away from Balthazar to look at Beatrice. Both his voice and his eyes were so full of hope as he turned to look at Beatrice that Balthazar couldn’t help noticing. The redness in his cheeks died down a little and a look of pain entered his eyes. Pedro didn’t notice.

“That was the best kiss I ever had too, Beatrice,” he continued, ignoring Balthazar and Ben who were looking at him in anguish and disgust, respectively.

“That’s my girlfriend, man,” said Benedick, his voice back to its normal pitch but sounding quite aggressive all of a sudden.

“Oh my God, Ben, chill out,” said Beatrice, rolling her eyes. “I’m not your property.”

“Yeah Ben, she’s her own person,” said Pedro competitively. “Why don’t we actually listen to what she has to say?”

“Okay you guys seriously need to chill out,” said Beatrice firmly. “I was going to say that it was probably such a good kiss because it didn’t actually mean anything, and that was easier to enjoy than kisses that mean something because you end up spending so much time worrying about whether they like you back and when they’ll ask you out and shit like that. It was an easy kiss, which made it good. Okay?”

Pedro looked crestfallen. Ben looked annoyed. Balthazar looked heartbroken.

“You want a good kiss?” said Ben suddenly, fiercely. “I’ll give you the best fucking kiss of your life.”

With that, Ben leaned over and put his hand on Beatrice’s neck and drew her head towards him. Beatrice gave a little sound of surprise as Ben covered her mouth with his, kissing her fiercely and passionately. He parted his mouth against hers and she followed suit. Before long he was exploring her mouth with his tongue and once again she followed his lead. If their kiss earlier had surprised them, this time they both saw fireworks. Beatrice had never been kissed like that before in her life. It one hundred percent trumped that stupid kiss with Pedro four years ago. She let him know that by giving a soft moan and leaning into the kiss with as much passion as he had started it.

That was when Ben drew away.

“There,” he said, his voice still harsh and annoyed. “I’m done with this game.”

He stood up and left the room.

“Yeah, I’m a bit tired of this too,” said Balthazar as he stood up, looking pointedly at Pedro, who had watched Ben kissing Beatrice in horror. Balthazar followed Ben out of the room. Pedro finally looked up, noticing Balthazar again. His expression changed to one of confusion and a different kind of hurt. The others all shared awkward glances and Hero finally decided that this would be a good time to put a movie on – she brought Claudio, Meg and Ursula with her to pick a DVD out in her bedroom. Beatrice and Pedro were left sitting staring at the door Benedick and Balthazar had closed behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So okay I don't really know anything about drinking habits in other countries, I know that in Ireland a night in always tend to include alcohol (usually vodka), but I also know that Ireland has a bit of a reputation when it comes to alcohol so I don't know how realistic this would be in New Zealand. I went with it anyway though so let's just pretend for now that Kiwis drink like the Irish. Also yeah sorry if Hero drinking while underage bothers anyone but I'm writing this from an Irish frame of mind and once again, in Ireland, that's pretty much a given (in my experience anyway)!


	5. ALCOHOL

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for some mild verbal abuse - very small amount and not very bad but I thought I should put it in a note just in case. Also some ableist terms, sorry, I just find them really hard to avoid.

After sitting in silence for a moment, Beatrice sighed heavily before standing up and walking out the door to find Benedick, without saying a word to Pedro.

The difficulty was, she couldn’t tell if Benedick was just acting annoyed as part of their plan or if there was something real going on. After all, he had seemed very annoyed at the thought of her kissing Pedro (and Balthazar), and that kiss had definitely been … something … but it wasn’t as if he actually liked her, right? This was just a silly (although excellently planned and executed) plan to get back at their friends. Beatrice rubbed her temples. Her mind was buzzing from the amount she had drank and that was not helping her process her thoughts. And she still didn’t know where he even was. Her first instinct was to check the bath, but when she thought about it, she knew that he usually went to the bath when he was actually upset about something. If this was just part of the act would he have gone somewhere else? Her bedroom perhaps? Then again, he had used the bath during some of his videos about liking her, and that had just been part of the act. There were too many thoughts running through Beatrice’s mind, but she decided (in her intoxicated state) that it would be safest to make a deal with herself: she would check the bath first, and if Benedick was in it that meant there was something really wrong with him, and if he wasn’t there that meant it was just part of the act.

As she opened the bathroom door, however, it knocked into someone.

“Shit, sorry,” she said, as Ben moved out of the way to let her into the small room. She closed the door behind her and tried to figure out what this meant. He wasn’t in the bath, but he looked like he was pacing up and down her bathroom. For all she knew he could have been in the bath a minute ago, or been about to get into it. Was he upset or not?

“Sorry if I went overboard down there,” he said lightly, but his tone sounded forced. “I just had maybe a bit too much drink and got a little overly enthusiastic.” He laughed, but it was an empty, humourless sound.

“No, it’s fine,” said Beatrice cautiously. “I think everyone was a little over-excited. Are you okay though? It kind of seemed like you might really be annoyed about something?”

“Me?” said Benedick, his voice threatening to become quite high-pitched again. “Yeah I’m fine, why wouldn’t I be?”

“I don’t know, it just seemed … different,” replied Beatrice, maintaining the cautious tone of voice she had been employing. “Like, before I could always tell when you were acting and what you were thinking – like we were on the same page. But just now, that felt different. Just off somehow. I thought you might actually be annoyed.”

Benedick’s face looked as though it wasn’t sure how it was supposed to be feeling for a second or two, but then settled in a familiar disdainful expression.

“Oh Beatrice, don’t tell me you’re actually falling for me,” he said, faux-sympathy etched across his face.

“Oh, in your dreams dickface,” said Beatrice, abandoning her cautious tone of voice in favour of a mocking one. “I was just worried that you might be falling for me because you seemed so jealous that I kissed Pedro and Balthazar.”

Benedick’s face was doing contortions again. At first he looked hurt, then angry, then back to disdain. “No such luck I’m afraid Beatrice, I’m just a talented actor. Besides, I’m not sure it’s actually physically possible for someone to fall for you.”

“Oh, so you think it would be lucky to fall for me?” Beatrice picked up on Benedick’s mistake. “Gee thanks, I have to agree.”

“Lucky for you,” hissed Benedick in reply. “Because it’s so unlikely.”

“Not according to Pedro,” snapped Beatrice. She knew it was unkind to use Pedro’s feelings (of which she had just become aware) as ammunition against Ben, but she was getting annoyed now and she was grasping at straws. Somehow this straw had quite the effect, however. As soon as Pedro’s name had left Beatrice’s mouth, Benedick’s face finally gave in to the anger it had been hinting at throughout the whole conversation.

“Well I don’t know what the fuck Pedro could possibly be thinking because you are the biggest bitch in the whole world. If he actually likes you he’s an idiot. You two suit each other, actually. Anyone stupid enough to fall for you can have you as far as I’m concerned!” Ben was practically screaming now. Through the noise of their argument, they almost didn’t hear the timid knock on the bathroom door. They both whipped their heads around and saw Ursula poke her head in cautiously.

“Um hey, sorry to interrupt guys, but, do you know where Balthazar went? Just Pedro completely ignored him after what happened downstairs and I want to make sure he’s okay.”

“I think he went outside,” said Benedick gritting his teeth, his fists still in balls.

Ursula muttered her thanks and closed the door behind her.

“Well great, how much do you think she heard?” said Beatrice impatiently once she was sure Ursula was out of earshot. “Do you think she knows our plan?”

“No, don’t be stupid, we didn’t give anything away when we were shouting,” said Benedick, the venom still present in his voice.

“When you were shouting more like,” muttered Beatrice.

Benedick ignored her. “So should we call off the plan then?” he asked sulkily. “Because honestly, I’m not mad about the idea of being your pretend boyfriend for much longer.”

“Don’t be stupid, why waste a perfectly good fight,” replied Beatrice harshly. “This was always how it was going to end wasn’t it? We should just fast forward. Finish the plan now.”

“Fine, so long as I don’t have to act like I actually like you for any longer,” said Benedick before leaving the room swiftly, as though he couldn’t wait to get away from her.

Beatrice realised after he left that she was trembling. She sank to the floor and was shocked to find tears welling up in her eyes. It seemed that this next phase of the plan wasn’t going to be hard. Before long, the tears were streaming down her face.

She couldn’t believe that this was what she had come to. This wasn’t her. This wasn’t Beatrice Duke. Beatrice Duke didn’t cry, let alone over a stupid fake boyfriend that she was supposed to hate. Yet here she was, on the bathroom floor, warm tears running down her cheeks. It must be the alcohol, she thought. She would blame it all on the alcohol. Tomorrow she would realise that this was just a stupid drunken moment of weakness and she wouldn’t even care about Benedick or their fight or anything.

"It's just the alcohol," she whispered to herself, as though it was a mantra - the only thought keeping her sane.

After all, she didn’t actually care that she and Benedick had fought did she? They fought constantly, why would it start bothering her now? Except that this was different. Sure, they both talked about how much they hated each other, but when they fought it was usually just light teasing and mocking. They were never actually angry, and they never really acted like they hated each other. But just now, the way that Benedick had looked at her, there was real anger in his face. Real hatred. She had finally done it. She had finally been so cruel to him that he started really hating her. And she hated herself too, for pushing him that far.

"Just the alcohol."

Why did she care? She had always thought he hated her, why did knowing it suddenly make her want to cry? What did it matter if Benedick Hobbes hated her? After all, she hated him, didn’t she? Did she? She couldn’t tell anymore. She hadn’t hated him when they were coming up with their epic plan together. She hadn’t hated him when they had sat together in class, conspiring and enjoying duping their clueless friends together. She definitely hadn’t hated him when he had kissed her.

"Just the alcohol."

But what did that mean? Had she stopped hating Benedick somewhere along the way? Had being on the same side as him for once changed her entire opinion of him? Something had definitely changed when he had kissed her. It was like somewhere in the back of her mind something had clicked. A realisation that her brain hadn’t decided to share with her. What was it? That feeling? She had certainly enjoyed the kiss, but that was just because Benedick was a good kisser, right? Not because she liked Benedick or anything. That was impossible. Wasn’t it?

"Just the alcohol."

As she relived the kiss in her mind, she suddenly understood what it was that had clicked in the back of her mind.

“This is right.” That was what her brain had been trying to tell her. “This is right.”

That sudden realisation was what pushed Beatrice over the edge. She finally gave in completely to the tears, letting them pour endlessly out of her eyes. Letting the sobs rip out of her chest. She didn’t even move, just stayed curled up on the bathroom floor, crying her eyes out over a stupid British boy who didn’t even care.

Just the alcohol?

An hour or so later, after Hero had managed to send everyone home, she found Beatrice upstairs on the bathroom floor, curled up in a small nest of towels, tears still streaming down her face.


	6. MORNING

When Beatrice woke up the next morning, her face was stiff with tear tracks, her head was pounding and her mouth was dry (although her pillow was damp). Hero lay next to her in the small single bed, her arm draped over Beatrice’s shoulder. For a moment (she would call it a blissful moment except for the hangover symptoms she was experiencing), Beatrice didn’t remember anything that had happened the night before. But all too soon it came flooding back to her.

She instantly felt mortified. Hero had seen her acting like a lovesick fool over Benedick. All their friends had probably heard her crying too. She would never live this down. And all because of Benedick – how ridiculous.

But it didn’t feel ridiculous. It felt real. She knew now that it wasn’t just the alcohol. She cared. She really cared. She didn’t want to, but she did.

Her mind flashed back to the night before and she saw Benedick’s face, twisted with anger and hatred. She felt tears threatening again. Could she possibly blame it on the hangover?

When she felt Hero stirring beside her she remembered that she was still supposed to be carrying out the plan. The problem was, she really didn’t care about the plan anymore. The plan was what had gotten her here in the first place. It had gotten her lying in bed with a pillow that was wet from all the tears she had shed and a throat that was raw from her sobbing and her cousin’s arms wrapped around her even though she was really wishing they were someone else’s arms.

This was ridiculous, she just had to forget about it. She could convince herself that there was nothing unusual going on inside her head. She could pretend that she was still the same old Beatrice who didn’t care about anything. But convincing herself of that would mean carrying on with the plan, so she took a deep breath and let the tears start falling down her cheeks again.

As soon as she started sniffling a little, Hero woke up. She sat up immediately, a look of worry on her face. Beatrice might have felt a little guilty, but Hero had brought this on herself by thinking that she could set Beatrice and Benedick up. It was now clearer than ever that that was the most ridiculous idea in the world and would obviously never work. Besides, if Beatrice had a choice between playing a trick on Hero and admitting that these tears were real, she knew which one she was choosing.

“It’s okay Beatrice, don’t cry,” said Hero softly, running a hand through Beatrice’s hair. “Shh, it will all be okay.”

“How can it be okay?” choked Beatrice, trying to find the most cliché words she could think of. She was wary of being too believable in this role. “He’s gone. He’s gone, and it’s all my fault.”

“It’s not your fault, Beatrice, nothing is your fault.”

“Yes it is, I should have known better,” Beatrice buried her head in the pillow as the tears flowed even harder. “It’s Benedick. How could I ever think that we could work out? How did that ever seem like a good idea?”

“Come on now Beatrice, this is just a fight, you guys will get past it,” said Hero reassuringly.

Beatrice sat up in the bed, looking Hero straight in the eye as she said her next lines. “No Hero. We won’t get past this. It’s over. It’s over for good.”

“You don’t know that,” Hero was trying so hard to remain optimistic. “In a day or two this will all have blown over and you guys can put it behind you and move on.”

“No Hero, you’re not listening to me,” said Beatrice forcefully. “It’s over. I know it is. He hates me. You didn’t see the way he looked at me. He hates me. And I hate him.” The tears were falling so heavily now that Beatrice could barely see.

“Don’t say that Beatrice, you don’t hate him.”

“I do! I hate him and I don’t know why I ever thought this could be a good idea.” Beatrice sniffed, wiping some of the tears away with the back of her hand. She knew her next lines, she had practised them in her head. “I always hated him, then one day, out of nowhere, I started thinking what if I didn’t hate him? What if maybe I liked him? And I don’t know why I started thinking that, I can’t figure out why it seemed like a good idea to me. But last night I realised that it would never work between us. Even if we could convince ourselves we were happy for a week, it would never last. We hate each other too much. And now all we’ve done by trying to prove otherwise is hurt ourselves. If we had been able to just stay as casual enemies, we would never have had that fight. I wouldn’t feel like this.”

With that, Beatrice collapsed back onto the bed, a fresh batch of tears pouring out of her eyes. She was surprised by the amount of tears that she was able to produce – she always read in books about people crying so much that they ran out of tears, but her tears seemed endless.

Hero had never felt so guilty in her life. She tried to comfort Beatrice for a while, but when it became clear that she wasn't really helping anything she went downstairs to make some pancakes – that would make Beatrice feel better, right? When had food ever failed to improve her mood? While she was mixing the batter however, she got her phone out and called Pedro.

“Hello?” he sounded like he wasn’t in a great mood himself.

“Pedro it’s Hero,” she said solemnly.

“Hero? Look no offence but can this wait? I just really –”

“No Pedro it can’t. We need to come clean.”

“We need to what?”

“Have you seen Ben since last night?”

“No, why?”

“Well I don’t know about him – and you absolutely cannot tell him this under any circumstances – but Bea is bad. Like, really bad. She hasn’t stopped crying since their fight last night. She was crying in her sleep. And it’s all our fault.”

“Shit,” mumbled Pedro. “Ugh, I’m too hungover for this.”

“You need to go see Ben now,” said Hero commandingly. “Bring Balth or someone with you. See how Ben is – but do not tell him what I told you about Bea, okay? The last thing we need is him using it to torture her. But you need to find out how he’s doing and what he’s thinking and get back to me. And I’m calling an emergency Team Love Gods meeting at my house for tomorrow. Okay?”

Pedro just grunted his response and hung up. Hero knew that some shit had gone down between Pedro and Balthazar last night, but as far as she could tell that was all on Pedro so she wasn’t exactly feeling sympathetic towards him. With any luck, he would bring Balth with him to Benedick’s and that would give them a chance to work their stuff out.

She sent a text around to the others, informing them of the emergency Team Love Gods meeting and got back to making the pancakes, the smell of which brought Beatrice stumbling down the stairs soon enough, a blanket wrapped around her.


	7. GUILT

An hour later, Pedro was nursing a Starbuck’s cup as he stood on Benedick’s front porch. Balthazar had said he would meet him there. Pedro was not looking forward to seeing Balthazar. Last night had been so confusing and he was fairly sure Balthazar was annoyed at him, not that he would ever really show it. But Pedro didn’t have the energy to even think about what was going on with his head the way it was.

Benedick’s mother opened the door. She looked relieved when she saw Pedro.

“Pedro,” she sighed in relief. “He’s in his bedroom.” She shook her head and her facial expression made it clear that there was something going on with him, but she couldn’t tell what.

Pedro nodded in thanks and entered Benedick’s room cautiously. Benedick was sitting on the floor playing Smash Bros with an aggression that Pedro had never seen before.

“Hey man,” said Pedro. Benedick grunted in response.

“Um, can I play?” he asked, unsure of how to proceed. Hero had been very clear (and uncharacteristically forceful) about what he had to do.

Benedick threw a console in his direction and scooted over a little bit so that there was room on the floor for Pedro. They settled back into the game in silence for the next few minutes. Normally Pedro always won Smash Bros, but today Ben’s anger seemed to be fuelling him and he had won three games out of four before Pedro worked up the courage to speak.

“So last night,” he said carefully, leaving the sentence hanging.

“What about it?” muttered Ben in a surly voice.

“Well, do you want to talk about it?”

“Do I look like a girl to you?”

“Guys can talk about stuff too Ben, and it kind of seems like you might need to.”

With that, Ben threw his console on the ground and stood up. “Fine, you want to talk? Let’s talk. Will we talk about how ridiculous I was to ever consider a serious relationship with the devil’s representative on earth? Or would you prefer to discuss how you ripped Balthazar’s heart out in front of everyone and couldn’t care less?”

A cough from the doorway made them both look up. Typical. Balthazar had just arrived.

Pedro winced. “Maybe we could stick to the devil’s representative on earth for now?” he asked.

Ben rolled his eyes, Balthazar’s unfortunate timing softening him a little. He flopped back on the bed.

“What’s there to say?” he asked. “We thought it could work. It didn’t. We were wrong.”

“Yeah but you don’t think it’s over forever do you?” asked Balthazar as he sought a seat somewhere on the opposite side of the room from Pedro. “I mean, it was just a fight. You guys can work it out, can’t you?”

“Oh no,” said Ben with a humourless chuckle. “There will be no working this out. It’s over for good – that much was made very clear last night.”

“Yeah but you were both drunk,” said Pedro. “You can’t seriously just call it quits after one drunken fight surely?”

Benedick sat up, looking Pedro straight in the eye. The next part was easy. His lines were already coming to him.

“Yeah except it wasn’t just one drunken fight,” he said slowly. “It was more than that. It’s like we both realised that what we were doing was crazy – how did we ever think that the two of us together could be a good idea? Who would ever think that that was a good idea? It’s like, for some reason, we both spontaneously decided that we might possibly like each other, but last night we both realised it wasn’t real. I mean it’s Beatrice – how could I ever really like her? And how could she like me? We were idiots to go along with it at all. All we did was hurt each other in the end. If we could have had the sense not to try it out, we wouldn’t have had a huge fight last night, she wouldn’t be sitting at home moping or sulking or crying or whatever she’s doing that made Hero send you guys over here, and I wouldn’t feel the need to play Smash Bros so angrily that I can beat Pedro.”

Balthazar raised his eyebrows at that last bit – no one ever beat Pedro at Smash Bros.

“So you’re sure it’s over? Like, one hundred percent?” asked Balthazar quietly.

Ben looked miserable as he nodded. “One hundred percent.”

“Do you – do you want to talk about it?” asked Pedro cautiously.

Ben just shook his head. “No in fact you know what? I think I’d like to go hang out in a bath for a while. Do you guys mind heading off?”

If Pedro and Balthazar thought there was anything strange about Ben’s statement, they didn’t let on. They both left, taking a last glance behind them at Benedick’s miserable face, filling both of them with guilt. They paused outside Ben’s house for a moment. Pedro turned to Balthazar.

“Look, about what Ben said –”

“Aw don’t worry about it man,” said Balthazar. “We were all just drunk last night, everyone got carried away with that stupid game.”

“Yeah but seriously Balth, I didn’t mean –”

“I know you didn’t mean anything Pedro, seriously, it’s fine, it’s not a big deal.”

“Well it might not be a big deal to you but it’s a big deal to me,” said Pedro determinedly. “I need to talk about it, even if you don’t.”

Balthazar sighed. “Fine, what do you want to say?”

“Well for starters, I want to say I’m sorry. If I’m being honest, I’m not a hundred percent sure what happened last night, but that’s no excuse. I get that I hurt you, and I feel really shit about that. The problem is I’m really messed up in my head right now. I’m not sure what’s going on with me at all, and I think I need some time to figure that out.” Pedro looked at Balthazar hopefully, hoping he had said enough to set things right for now.

“Alright fair enough,” shrugged Balthazar, still determined to play it cool. “But like, if you need help figuring anything out, you know you can talk to me, right?”

Pedro nodded. “You know, I might actually take you up on that,” he said. “There’s some stuff that I think you might be able to help me figure out.”

Balthazar was confused but if Pedro needed his help with something, he would be there.

“Do you want to talk about it now?” he asked.

“Um, I think I need to wait until this hangover is gone before I can really think straight,” smiled Pedro a little guiltily. “I definitely drank too much last night.”

Balthazar laughed. “Alright, fair enough. Give me a call or a text whenever then,” he said, before they both got into their cars and headed home.

Before Pedro pulled out of Ben’s driveway, however, he gave Hero a call.

“I think you’re right,” he said. “Ben’s not in a good way. We need to own up.”

“Tomorrow, my house, two o’clock.”


	8. CONFESSION

-Hey Ben, sorry about what happened with you and Bea. She’s gone out for the afternoon, I was wondering if you could come over and pick up some of the stuff you left here? It would be good for Bea if they were gone, I think. –Hero

-Yeah sure no problem. Should I come over now? –Ben

-Yes, she’ll be back in about an hour. –Hero

-On my way. –Ben

Hero put her phone down and sighed as she looked around the room.

“He’s on his way,” she told the others. They all nodded in silence. Everyone was tense, they all felt guilty about the unfortunate turn the Team Love Gods plan had taken. Perhaps they had been a bit too hasty to call themselves love gods.

Just then they heard the shower turn off upstairs. Hero’s eyes widened.

“Guys, be quiet, I’ll go upstairs and stall until Benedick gets here – can one of you text me when he pulls up? I’ll run downstairs and get the door.”

They all nodded as Hero grabbed her phone and ran upstairs. Five minutes later, the sound of an engine made them look out the window – Benedick was here. Pedro sent a quick text up to Hero and she came running downstairs at top speed. She got to the door before Benedick had a chance to ring the doorbell – which was good. She didn’t want to alert Beatrice to his presence too early.

“Hey Hero,” said Ben sullenly. “So where’s my stuff?”

“Um, it’s just in here,” she said, directing him into the living room where the others were waiting. Before she push him round the corner, however, Beatrice called down from upstairs.

“Hero? Where did you go running of to?”

Ben rounded on Hero. “I thought you said she wasn’t here,” he hissed.

“I lied!” said Hero, panicking. Beatrice was coming down the stairs. Any second now she would see Ben and go running back upstairs, and then it would be impossible to get her to come down. Hero pushed Ben into the living room, hoping the others would keep him there. She could hear him start to react and the others shushing him. Oh well, Beatrice was the priority right now. And she had just come into view.

She was wearing a ratty old pair of jeans and an enormous jumper. Her wet hair had been thrown into a messy bun and her face was still red and tear-stained, as it had been all weekend. With a sigh of frustration, Hero grabbed Bea’s wrist and dragged her into the bathroom, closing the door behind them. Beatrice looked confused but didn't resist. Hero grabbed a cloth and rubbed Beatrice’s face to get rid of the tear tracks, ignoring her protestations. It still looked a little pinched and red, but there was nothing much more Hero could do - all her make up was upstairs and besides, Bea wearing make up would be as much of a giveaway as anything else.

“What are you doing Hero?” demanded Bea as her cousin’s hand wiped at her face with the cloth. When that was done, Hero pulled Beatrice’s hair down without saying a word. She ran a brush through it and pinned it up neatly. She pulled the enormous jumper off Beatrice and replaced it with a more respectable cardigan over the blue top Beatrice had on.

She looked Beatrice up and down, examining her handiwork. If she was going to force Bea to see the guy who had broken her heart, she was at least going to make sure her cousin kept her dignity intact. As soon as she was satisfied with her results, she grabbed Beatrice’s wrist again and pulled her towards the living room door, pausing just outside.

“Alright, look, I know you might be annoyed at me for this, but it was really important that we do this, because it’s something you guys have to know,” she said.

Beatrice all of a sudden became very worried. “Hero, what are you –” but she was cut off as Hero dragged her into the living room.

Under normal circumstances, the sight that met Beatrice’s eyes as she walked (was pulled) around the corner would have made her laugh. Meg, Pedro and Claudio were sitting on the couch, Ursula and Balthazar on the ground in front of them. And Benedick was crushed in between Pedro and Claudio, Pedro’s hand over Ben’s mouth and Claudio’s arms around his torso, holding him down.

Unfortunately, today this sight just made her want to turn around and run away. But that wasn’t an option. Hero dragged her into the room and sat her down on a chair facing the others, then grabbed Ben and deposited him a chair next to Beatrice’s. They both scooted further away from each other, avoiding eye contact.

“Alright, what’s going on guys?” asked Beatrice impatiently as Hero sat down on the other side of Claudio.

The irony was not lost on Ben or Bea – Team Love Gods were sitting in the exact same positions they had been during the original video that had started all of this. They had come to the end of their brilliant plan, but neither of them felt so brilliant anymore. Still, they had to keep the act up until Team Love Gods actually confessed, so Ben looked down at his hands, schooling his face into what he hoped was a heartbroken expression. Bea drew her knees up to her chest and did her best to appear on the verge of tears (without actually letting any more tears escape – there was no way she would let Benedick see her cry).

“Okay guys, we have a confession to make,” said Pedro, automatically taking control of the situation. “And you’re probably both going to be pretty angry at us after this, but just try and bear in mind that we really thought we were doing something good for you guys.”

“What are you talking about Pedro?” snapped Benedick impatiently. He was anxious to get this over with.

“Should we tell them or just show them the video?” asked Ursula.

“Tell us what? What video?” demanded Beatrice.

“Nah just tell them, they can watch the video later,” said Balthazar.

“Alright, what they’re trying to tell you,” said Hero, “is that we may have had something to do with you guys getting together.”

“What do you mean? How could you guys have anything to do with that?” asked Benedick, but his heart really wasn’t in it anymore.

“Oh just show them the video, it will explain better than we can,” said Meg rolling her eyes. She took her phone out and started tapping the screen until she handed it over to Ben and Beatrice, who were forced to lean in close to each other so they could watch it together.

Being so close to Ben was impossible. Beatrice couldn’t focus on anything other than maintaining enough distance that her skin wouldn’t touch his. Her breaths were coming shorter than usual, and she could see him breathing in time with her. His head moved just a fraction of an inch as he shifted in his seat to get a better view, but it was enough that their heads touched. And that was too much. They both jumped away, handing the phone back to Meg, trying to muster up their best smug grins – not an easy task for either of them.

Beatrice glanced over at Ben, waiting for a cue, but just as she saw his head turn, she looked away quickly. She suddenly realised that she really didn’t want to make eye contact with him.

Ben glanced towards Bea, waiting for her cue, but he saw her look away as soon as he looked over at her. It was for the best – he was scared she might see something he didn’t want her to in his eyes. Besides, what if looking into her eyes had some kind of effect on him? He wouldn’t be surprised by that at this point – since the party it had become clear that anything was suddenly possible when it came to Beatrice Duke.

“So you admit that it was wrong, what you did?” asked Ben, taking control of the situation.

The others all looked confused. “Well, yeah, obviously. We never expected it to end like this,” said Hero, a small frown on her face.

“All of you? What about you Pedro?” demanded Bea.

“Yeah of course, what Hero said,” said Pedro. The others all nodded, although frowns of confusion were appearing on all their faces.

“Well then, Beatrice, I think it’s safe to say we’ve won this one,” smiled Ben, still avoiding eye contact.

“What? What are you talking about?” asked Ursula.

Beatrice rolled her eyes. “You guys didn’t really think you’d be able to pull this off, did you?” asked Beatrice, her tone incredulous. “Come on guys, in what universe would I ever date Ben?”

“What are you talking about Bea, you and Ben were dating?” asked Pedro.

“Pretending to date, actually,” said Ben smugly. “It was all a ruse. A spectacular ruse that all of you fell for.”

“We saw the video as soon as it went up guys,” said Beatrice. “I mean, clearly you aren’t expert plotters like we are – we would never have made such a rookie mistake as putting our plan up on the internet.” Beatrice nearly choked on the word ‘we’, but she managed to get it out.

“Wait, so you guys are telling us,” said Hero slowly, “that you saw the video, pretended to fall for each other, and started pretend dating? Why?”

“It was all part of our revenge plan,” Beatrice was getting impatient. She had pictured herself feeling more victorious at this point. “We faked that huge fight the other night, and how upset we were, so you guys would feel really guilty and realise that you shouldn’t mess around in other people’s lives.”

At this point, Beatrice was avoiding eye contact with everyone, looking at her hands. She didn’t want Hero to be able to tell that she was lying when she said that they had been pretending during the fight and the aftermath. At least, she hadn’t pretending. She was sure it was all fake on Ben’s side.

“Now, if that’s all guys, I think I’d like to get back to my house, I have some homework I need to take care of,” said Ben, who had been fidgeting the whole time, clearly impatient to get away from Beatrice.

“Yeah actually, so do I,” said Beatrice, who wanted to get away from all the questioning eyes around her. She and Ben stood up at the same time. They avoided eye contact completely as they walked towards the hallway. Before they parted ways, Ben turned and offered a congratulatory hi-five to Beatrice. It was a half-hearted affair and they nearly missed each other’s hands, considering neither of them would make eye contact. Then Ben turned to go out the door and Bea ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

Both let out a sigh of relief when they were out of sight. They tried to tell themselves that they were glad the whole ordeal was over and done with now, but deep down, they both wished that they had a reason to sit beside each other in class on Monday.

There was silence in the living room for a few minutes after Bea and Ben left. Everyone was processing what had just happened.

“Is it just me,” said Pedro at last, slowly, “or did that seem like it definitely wasn’t all pretend?”

Slowly but surely, everyone muttered their agreement.

“There was definitely something weird going on between Bea and Ben,” commented Meg.

“I overheard part of their argument last night and it definitely didn’t sound fake,” added Ursula.

“Well what were they arguing about?” asked Claudio.

“Um, it sounded like Ben was jealous about Beatrice kissing Pedro, but I only caught a little bit.”

“Guys, what if – what if they started it off pretending to date to get back at us but actually started liking each other in the process?” asked Hero quietly.

“And now of course, because they’re both so stubborn, they can’t admit it,” added Balthazar, shaking his head.

“Would that mean that our plan actually worked?” asked Pedro, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Just like, in a roundabout sort of way?”

“Do you think we should try and fix whatever’s happened between them?” suggested Claudio.

“Have we not learned our lesson when it comes to meddling?” asked Ursula nervously. Balthazar nodded in agreement.

“I don’t know though,” said Hero thoughtfully. “I mean, technically nothing bad really happened because of us – it was their plan all along to have a fight. We had nothing to do with that. Anything else that happened between them was all on them really. Our meddling had no effect. So it wouldn’t really be so bad to try again?”

“So … Team Love Gods part two?” asked Pedro with a smile.

“Team Love Gods part two,” agreed the others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I'm going to be trying to upload two chapters a day for the next few days because I'm worried I'll run out of time, I'm going away in three days and I won't have internet! This is turning out a lot longer (and very different) than I thought it would be, so y'know just like, bear with me as I figure it out!


	9. EMOTIONS

“Hey, do you mind if I come in?” Balthazar’s voice came through Beatrice’ bedroom door later that day, along with a timid knock.

Beatrice wordlessly got up and opened the door, before sitting back down on her bed, wrapping her blankets around her whole body again.

“Hero let me in,” said Balthazar awkwardly as he took a seat at the other end of Beatrice’s bed, placing his ukulele carefully beside him. “How are you doing?”

Beatrice shrugged. “I’m fine, why wouldn’t I be?”

“Beatrice,” started Balthazar slowly, “you may have fooled the others, but I’m the king of unrequited love – unrequited crushes, let’s say for now,” he added when Beatrice’s face blanched at the word love.

“What are you talking about?” she asked sullenly, unwilling to give anything away.

“You can deny it if you want, but I won’t believe you anyway, so you might as well admit it,” Balthazar smiled a little. “Besides, I won’t tell the others. I just wanted you to know that you can talk to me – I’m pretty experienced in this area and I think I could help you with it.”

Beatrice looked thoughtful for a minute before rolling her eyes. “Fine! I might possibly like Ben in a more-than-friends way, happy?” she exclaimed before burying her face in her mattress. “How can you help me with that? He hates me, remember?” Her voice was muffled.

“Aw come on Bea, I’m sure he doesn’t really hate you,” said Balthazar lightly, but it was clearly the wrong thing to say.

Beatrice sat up and looked him straight in the eye. “You didn’t see his face when he was screaming at me,” she said seriously.

Balthazar nodded, conceding the point. “No, that’s fair enough, I didn’t. Still, I think the most important thing is not to let these things completely take over your life.” He looked pointedly at Beatrice, curled up in her blankets, a chocolate salad on the nightstand and a red, pinched face. “You have to learn to get by day to day until you get over it – which I’m still waiting for, but I’m sure you’ll have more luck than me.” Beatrice rolled her eyes sceptically. “And then obviously, there are some days, when for whatever reason it gets too hard,” continued Balthazar. Beatrice nodded miserably. “I’ve been where you are right now, sitting in bed not wanting to move or talk to anyone or do anything – but I think it’s important to find a way to get past that, to pick yourself up again.”

“Yeah? And how do you do that?” asked Beatrice, unconvinced.

“Well I think the best way is to work through your feelings instead of trying to push them to the side. Try and figure out what’s really at the root of your problems, and once you’ve realised what it is it usually becomes a lot easier to handle.”

“Easier said than done,” mumbled Beatrice.

“Yep. And that’s where I can help you.” Balthazar grinned widely at a confused looking Beatrice. “I find the best way to get down to the core of your issues is to write a song – obviously that’s not for everyone, but that’s what works for me and it’s what I’m going to help you do today. Because writing a song forces you to put into words the vague feelings you have, and as soon as you start, you find all this stuff you hadn’t even realised pouring out. I swear, it works wonders.”

Balthazar picked up his ukulele, grabbed a notebook and pen and looked expectantly at Beatrice.

“I don’t have a choice, do I?” asked Bea grumpily. Balthazar’s smile just widened as he shook his head. “Alright well, it’s worth a shot anyway. I suppose it can’t make me feel any worse. Where would I even start though?”

“At the beginning,” said Balthazar, handing the pen and paper to Bea. “The first thought that comes into your head when you think of Ben. Once you’ve got the ball rolling it will be easy. I’ll help you structure it into a song and whatnot, you just need to provide the material. So – Benedick Hobbes. What’s the first thing that comes to mind?”

Beatrice groaned, covering her face as she said the following words: “That there is literally no way to put into words how much I like him.”

Balthazar laughed a little, earning him a glare from Beatrice, whose face was still a brilliant shade of red.

“Okay, no laughing, sorry,” he said meekly. “Alright, that’s a good first line – there’s no way to tell you, how much I like you,” he hummed, strumming a chord on his ukulele. “What do you think?”

Beatrice shrugged. “You’re the music expert.”

“Ah, I’m not an expert, just an enthusiast," he shrugged modestly. "Anyway, next line? Next thought about Ben?”

“Ugh, how crazy it is that I like him! Like, what even?”

“Alright, that could work – it’s crazy I know – what next?”

“I don’t know where to go,” said Beatrice quietly, getting into the exercise a bit. “I don’t want to leave your side, I – I don’t know, I’m stuck.”

“Um, how about, if I try to leave your side I might just lose my mind?” suggested Balthazar. Beatrice laughed.

“You’re good at this,” she commented.

“Yeah well, I’ve done it enough times,” he laughed. “Alright come on, let’s keep going.”

“I just – I mean it’s just so cheesy!” groaned Beatrice.

“That’s okay, we can use that,” replied Balthazar. “You’re the one for me, and I know that it sounds cheesy.”

Beatrice laughed again. Somehow this was helping – hearing her biggest worries as just another line in a song really helped put them into perspective.

“Alright,” she said. “And the next line should be, believe me when I say I never thought I’d feel this way. Because I didn’t. Ever.”

Balthazar laughed and played around with some chords as Beatrice wrote down the lyrics they had so far. “You know,” he said, “I think that’s sounds like a pretty good first verse, don’t you?”

Beatrice nodded, definitely enjoying this activity. Balthazar was quite proud of himself. “Okay, next verse. When you see Ben, what do you think?”

“Mostly I just worry if he can tell that I like him or not,” said Bea anxiously.

“Well, I don’t think he can tell, if that’s any consolation. How about this for the next line: I see you standing there, I wonder if you’re aware?”

Beatrice nodded. “Yeah that sounds good. How about something about how – how when I see him sometimes it feels like the world starts spinning?” Beatrice looked at her hands. Admitting these things was hard, but she could already feel the good it was doing her. She was really grateful to Balthazar for making her do this.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s good,” said Balthazar, not commenting on the cheesiness of Bea’s words. “How about, I see you and I grin, my world it starts to spin?”

“Yeah and then maybe something about how I wish I could say these things except I know I can’t?” suggested Beatrice.

“I want it to be said, these things that are in my head,” sang Balthazar softly.

“If I said it to your face, you’d call me a disgrace,” added Beatrice, thinking about just how true those words were.

“Yeah, I like that,” grinned Balthazar. “Alright, one more line should complete the second verse. Any thoughts?”

“Um … I guess I just get scared that everyone can see what’s going on in my head,” admitted Beatrice.

“Alright, how about, but everyone can see, what you have done to me?” Beatrice nodded. “And if it’s any consolation, I really don’t think anyone but me could tell. And I only could because I have so much experience. Anyway, verse three. Thoughts?”

“Okay well I guess I just keep focusing on how I should be hiding this and denying it and all, but that takes so much energy?”

“Yeah I know what you mean,” smiled Balthazar sympathetically. “Okay how about … Oh I could try to deny it, but why should I fight this.”

“It’s been you all along, I’ve been in the wrong, you never thought you’d hear me say this, but I don’t care anyway, ‘cause you make me smile, please – please – shit, I don’t know. Balthazar help me.”

“That was all really good Bea, did you write it down?” Balthazar was impressed with Beatrice’s ability to come up with lyrics. Then again, she had always been good with words. “Um, you make me smile, please stay for a while?”

“Yes, that’s perfect,” smiled Bea as she wrote down the new lyrics.

“Alright, verse three last line?”

“Ugh I don’t know, I think I’m running out of words,” grumbled Beatrice.

“Stop thinking about words, just think about feelings. What else do you think about when you think about Ben?”

Bea thought for a moment. “About how much of an idiot he is?” she suggested jokingly. She paused then, however, before adding, “but that’s kind of what’s great about him.”

Balthazar smiled. Beatrice was a little bit adorable in love. “Um, of course you’re just a fool, but that’s what makes you kind of cool?” suggested Balthazar. Bea nodded and wrote it down. “Okay and on to verse three we go!” he smiled excitedly. This was taking much quicker than his usual song-writing process did. Then again, this wasn’t exactly a serious song. “Okay we could make the form of this verse a little different,” he suggested. Beatrice looked questioningly at him. “Um, the form – as in there can be a different amount of lines or the lines could be different lengths. Something like that,” he explained. “And when we get to the tune we can change that around too for this verse.”

Bea nodded. “Okay verse three … I guess I keep thinking about how great he was while we were tricking you guys. Like, he was really dependable and that was really great. ‘Cause I felt so weird after seeing that video you guys made, it was good that he was there.”

“Yeah alright, how about, you stayed true when I needed someone, I felt defeated.”

“I love it that you cared, and that you were there,” added Beatrice, still scribbling everything down in the notebook. “Oh my God,” she said suddenly, looking up.

“What?” asked Balthazar nervously.

“We have to put Nothing Much To Do in,” she said, suddenly very excited. Balthazar laughed.

“Yeah alright, how about um, you know without you there’d be nothing much to do?”

“Perfect,” grinned Beatrice, scribbling it down. She stopped in thought for a moment. "It's kind of true too," she said thoughtfully. "I mean, even before I liked him, I spent most of my time either talking about how much I hate him or thinking about how much I hate him or arguing with him - if he wasn't there I literally wouldn't have anything left to do."

“Ah, see? Writing songs always makes you realise stuff like that," grinned Balthazar. "Anyway, verse four. Thoughts?”

Beatrice wrote the last verse slowly and haltingly without any help from Balthazar, as she thought of all the other things Ben was making her feel.

“Um, Of course it won’t be perfect, but - but maybe it’d be worth it. It won’t be okay, not every day. We’d argue and stuff, and - and kick up a fuss. But I want you to know, it’s from this we would grow, and in the - in the end, you’re more than just a friend. I wish you felt the same way, I wish that it was okay, to tell you that it’s true, I’m in love with you.”

As Beatrice drew to the end she drew in a shuddering breath. Emotions were hard. Balthazar just stared at Bea, his ukulele neglected. He was so proud of her for being able to admit all of that. After a minute of silence, Balthazar jerked himself back to reality.

“That’s pretty good Bea, I think we have a song.”

They spent the next hour or so working out chords (Balthazar kept it pretty simple), melodies and even some simple harmonies. When they had it all worked out perfectly, Balthazar begged Beatrice to let him record it.

“I promise I won’t show it to anyone,” he said, his fingers crossed, as he got his phone out. “I just want to be able to remember the chords and stuff that I used.”

“Fine,” said Beatrice rolling her eyes, “but if anyone ever sees it I will hunt you down and kill you.” She stared seriously at him across the room as he hit record.

She was reluctant to start at first, and even half way through the song she nearly gave up and Balthazar had to save the day, but in the end he got it recorded (with a little moment of victory at the end) and shoved his phone back in his pocket. He left not long after that, leaving a much happier looking Beatrice in the place of the one he had found when he arrived.

He passed Hero on his way out and waved his phone in her face. “Got it,” he grinned triumphantly.

Hero gave him a hi-five and shared his grin before closing the door after him as he ran down the road to get to Ben’s place quickly. The last she saw of him was him stripping his jumper off in the afternoon sun to reveal his favourite Mumford and Sons t-shirt.

Team Love Gods part two: well and truly underway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so this is obviously a really condensed description of how the song might have been written, I realise that it takes a lot longer than that to actually write a song! I just really like exploring how songs are written and what someone might have been thinking when they wrote a particular line, so I sped the process up to fit it into a hopefully-not-too-long chapter. And obviously this song is slightly different to fit into this storyline.


	10. SONG

Ben’s mother answered the door when Balthazar knocked. Seeing Balthazar, she smiled – she liked Balthazar. All parents seemed to like Balthazar.

“He’s sulking in the garden,” she said before Balthazar could open his mouth. He just grinned.

“Thanks Mrs. Hobbes,” he said, stepping into the house.

“I don’t suppose any of you are going to tell me what’s going on?” asked Ben’s mother, although there wasn’t much hope in her tone of voice.

Balthazar just shrugged. “It’s a really long story,” he said. Mrs. Hobbes didn’t pursue the subject.

Balthazar stepped into the small garden behind the house to see Ben lying face down on the grass.

“Hey man,” he said after clearing his throat, not wanting to startle Benedick.

“Hey,” said Ben through the grass.

“You doing okay down there?” asked Balthazar, sitting down on the grass next to his friend. Ben finally sat up.

“Just peachy, why wouldn’t I be?” he said through a fake smile. Balthazar opened up his mouth to give him the same speech about helping with unrequited love as he had given Beatrice, but before he could get two words out, Ben had cut across him. “Oh who am I kidding Balth, I’m terrible!” he exclaimed, throwing himself back down onto the grass. “I’m in love with Beatrice Duke and she hates me and is probably in love with Pedro and there’s nothing I can do about it and I’m the biggest idiot in the world for even liking her to begin with.”

Balthazar raised his eyebrows. He hadn’t realised it would be this easy with Ben.

“Well um, you might not know this Ben,” began Balthazar with a small, sympathetic smile, “but I’m actually a bit of a pro when it comes to unrequited love.”

Ben sat up immediately, feeling guilty. “Yeah sorry man, I forgot,” he said.

“No, no it’s fine,” Balthazar reassured him. “I just wanted to say that well, I’ve a lot of practice dealing with it now so I thought maybe I could help you through the rough patch?”

“No one can help me, I’m miserable and it’s all my own doing,” whined Ben dramatically.

“Trust me, I think I can help you, if you’ll just let me,” laughed Balthazar.

“Oh yeah? And how do you propose to help me?” Benedick was clearly still unconvinced.

“Well I’ve learnt a few tricks along the way,” said Balthazar.

“Like what?”

“Well I think that it’s mostly about just trying not to let it take over your whole life.” Ben interrupted Balthazar with a snort. “But when it does,” continued Balthazar determinedly, “you need to figure out how to work through the emotions, rather than letting them get the best of you. And I find the best way to do that is with music.”

“For a musical genius maybe,” grumbled Ben.

“Maybe. And for the friend of a musical genius – not that I’m a genius in anyway. But anyway, come on, I’m not giving you a choice. I’m going to help you write a song to deal with your feelings for Bea. I swear, it’ll make it ten times easier.”

Ben looked sceptically at Balthazar for a moment, but as soon as it became clear that Balth wasn’t going to back down, Ben just rolled his eyes. “Fine. But no one can know about this.”

“Deal,” grinned Balthazar, crossing his fingers.

“Alright well if we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it right,” said Ben. “And that means I need inspiration.” He walked to edge of the garden to grab the lawn ornament that stood there – a pink flamingo. He sat back down beside Balthazar again, absent mindedly stroking the flamingo. If Balthazar thought there was anything strange about that, he didn’t mention it.

“Alright so, what’s your first line going to be?” asked Balthazar.

“Um, hey – what rhymes with lady? Baby? How about, oh lady oh baby, I really think your something,” grinned Ben enthusiastically.

Balthazar just nodded and picked at some chords. He knew that it would take Ben a few lines to really start opening up, but he would get there eventually. “Alright, what next?” asked Balthazar when he had an idea what chords and chord pattern he could use for that.

“Uh, alright, uh, I used to think cupid was pretty fucking stupid? I mean I did. Well not cupid, he’s just a creepy flying baby with arrows, but he’s a metaphor for love isn’t he? A creepy-ass metaphor maybe, but a metaphor nonetheless. And I used to think love was stupid. But maybe not so much anymore.”

Balthazar smiled down at his ukulele. Ben was getting there even quicker than he had anticipated. “That’s great, keep going man,” encouraged Balthazar. “You should write it down, too.”

Ben took his phone out and started typing on it. “Okay then, I don’t know what’s going on, but I’ve written you a song. That should come next.”

Balthazar found that he had a lot less work to do with Ben than he had with Bea. He didn’t mind. He always thought Ben was quite entertaining when he started suggesting lyrics for his songs.

“And if there’s a god above, he’d be the god of love,” continued Ben, more to himself than to Balthazar.

“Woah man, slow down,” laughed Balthazar. “And you know, you should really try and work out how you’re feeling about all this, not just what words rhyme well,” he suggested cautiously, not wanting to put Ben off the idea altogether. Luckily Ben seemed to take his suggestion well.

“Alright, well I guess I just feel quite bad about how mean I’ve been to her,” admitted Ben, looking down at the grass as he did. “Um, what rhymes with scorn?” he asked, thinking hard. “Horn? Oh, oh! And maybe I’ve scorned thee, but now I find I’m horny for you, it’s true, maybe you are horny for me too!” sang Benedick enthusiastically.

Balthazar laughed. “I like it,” he grinned (that may have been a bit of a white lie, but for a first effort it wasn’t bad).

“And I hate the way she always seems to think the worst of me,” continued Benedick thoughtfully – he was taking Balthazar’s suggestion seriously. “You know she told me once – dead serious and all – that I don’t have a soul?” he told Balthazar incredulously. “Oh, that should be the next line – last time I scored a goal you said I didn’t have a soul.” Apparently he hadn’t stopped looking for the good rhymes either. “But,” he continued slowly. “I do feel really bad about the way I yelled at her the other night. I think I might have gone a little overboard – crossed the line, even. How about, and if you’ve been offended, I hope this will mend it, as the next line?”

Balthazar nodded, still picking away at his ukulele as Ben spat new lines at him every few seconds. He had a good idea where the song was going musically, he just needed Ben to finish the lyrics.

“And sometimes, sometimes I just start thinking about if she did like me back, if we actually started dating, and I wonder if that could actually work? I feel like it would be breaking some kind of law of the universe or something. What if we were dating, wouldn’t that be breaking all the rules? I like that as the next line.” Balthazar nodded as Ben typed it into his phone. “And I want to include something about how it would sound like I’m joking if I actually said those things in real life, but I’m not. Oh my God Balthazar, can I put a rap in?” asked Ben excitedly all of a sudden.

Balthazar laughed and shrugged his shoulders. “Yeah man, it’s your song, you can do whatever you want.”

“Okay, okay, so, it might sound like I’m joking, like I’m poking fun of you, it’s not true though it sounds like something I would do, and I know I said I’d rather be - uh, what's a bad thing? Hung like a cat and - and - oh, and beaten with a bat, stick a biro in my eye but everybody lies sometimes, love is blind, that didn’t even rhyme … what …” said Ben in his best rapper voice (with some awesome hand movements to match). Balthazar just laughed as Ben wrote it down.

“Alright and what then?” asked Balthazar, still hoping he could squeeze some more real emotions out of Ben.

“Well, we’re coming into the ending now,” said Benedick thoughtfully, “so it could work if we sort of mirrored the beginning?” he said, as though he actually knew what he was talking about. “How about oh lady you’re lovely, I want you to be my baby,” he suggested. “And then, some more honesty perhaps. Like, and maybe I’m crazy, but I would not betray thee. Are two ‘thees’ too much? Should I say you instead? Um, I’ll decide later.”

Ben paused for a moment there, clearly thinking something in his head and debating whether or not to say it out loud. Balthazar said nothing, giving Benedick time to come to the right decision. Eventually he did.

He looked at the ground as he said the next line: “And this will sound sappy … you make me happy …” he looked up again as he continued on quickly, not wanting to dwell on that cheesy line. “And I’m no poet, and I think you know that,” he added. “Balth, I think I’m out of words,” he said then. “Is it done? Can we leave it at that?” he asked.

“I don’t know, it doesn’t feel done to me,” said Balthazar thoughtfully. “What if you had a closing line of some kind?” he suggested. “Like maybe you could just do one line just saying what you think of her, or how you feel about her?”

Ben leaned back in thought. “Alright, how about, Beatrice you’re vivacious, I can’t take this, I love you? Is that too much?” he asked.

Balthazar grinned and shook his head. “Nah man, it’s perfect. And maybe we could like, repeat it a few times?”

That got Ben excited. “Yeah, like, really upbeat, and then I could just sing her name loads of times,” he grinned. Balthazar just shrugged his shoulders. He had pictured it in a slow, fading out sort of way, but as he had said earlier, this was Ben’s song, not his.

“Alright then, is that it so?” asked Balthazar. “Just finish on her name?”

“Hmm … no. I want to finish it more slowly,” said Ben. “Just one more line should do the trick. How about, and I guess I’ll see you at school and … and … and what rhymes with school? Tool? Mule? Fuel? No, fool! Fool! I guess I’ll see you at school and I’ll play the fool. That’s perfect because that is literally what is going to happen.” Benedick grinned at Balthazar.

“Alright man, sounds pretty good,” grinned Balthazar back. “Let’s get working on some chords and melodies – harmonies too maybe?”

An hour or so later, chords had been chosen, melodies learned, harmonies practised and the whole song recorded (Ben was much more willing than Beatrice had been).

Ben wasn’t quite as grateful to Balthazar as Bea had been – then again, he hadn’t taken the exercise quite as seriously. It didn’t have the same effect on him, he still felt moody and anxious and fidgety when Balth left. He did appreciate the distraction though - at least he had been doing something with his energy, rather than tearing out chunks of grass.

Balthazar had a huge grin on his face as he left Ben’s house.

“How’s he doing?” asked Mrs. Hobbes as she saw Balthazar on his way out.

“He’s not great, but don’t worry, we’re taking care of it,” grinned Balthazar. Mrs. Hobbes just raised her eyebrows, wondering what her son’s friends were up to. She was wise enough not to ask however.

“So long as he gets out of this mood,” she said. “I’m not sure how much more of it my garden can take.”

“Don’t worry,” grinned Balthazar. “He should be feeling much better tomorrow.”


	11. CONFUSED

Team Love Gods set their trap for the next day – they really wanted everything to be sorted out before school on Monday. They assembled in Pedro’s house early in the day (minus Hero, who was keeping an eye on Beatrice) and figured out their battle plans. Eventually, texts were sent to Benedick and Beatrice.

-Hey Ben, want to come over and play video games with me and Balth? –Pedro

-Hey Bea, going to Pedro’s for junk food and shit TV, you should come. And bring Hero. –Meg

After the texts had been sent, Pedro and Balthazar sat in the living room playing video games while the others all hid upstairs in Pedro’s bedroom. Hero was making sure that Beatrice was delayed until Ben arrived, so Pedro and Balthazar were waiting for him, but he was taking his time. They played in silence at first but finally Pedro broke the silence.

“Hey man, remember when I told you that I was really confused about some stuff at the moment?” he asked tentatively.

“Yeah I remember,” said Balthazar, just as tentatively. He had been waiting for Pedro to bring this up.

“Well I was wondering if maybe I could talk to you about it, I think you could help me figure some stuff out.”

“Yeah sure man, what’s up?”

“Well it’s just …” Pedro fiddled with the button on his sleeve, video games abandoned. “It’s just okay, I don’t want you to think I’m asking you because you’re gay and that means you’ll automatically have all the answers, because that wouldn’t make sense because everyone is different and you’ve experienced things in completely different ways than I would. I’m only asking you in particular because you’re my best friend. And because I just really can’t imagine talking to anyone else about this.”

“Okay, what is it man?” asked Balthazar, now utterly confused.

Pedro took a deep breath. “I’ve been thinking recently that I might not be straight.”

This took Balthazar completely by surprise. Pedro had always been obsessed with some girl or other from school – mostly Bea, but there had been others in between. Could he possibly be making fun of Balthazar? It seemed unlikely.

“But then, I don’t think I’m really gay either and - and I just don't know,” added Pedro.

“Um what, do you think you’re asexual? Or bisexual? Or something else?” suggested Balthazar.

“I don’t know,” sighed Pedro. “I haven’t been able to put a word on it yet. It’s just like, it’s like there are these two separate Pedro’s. One that sees Bea and starts thinking oh my God I’m in love with her and how cool is she and all that, and you know, gets obsessed with female celebrities and stuff. But then there’s another Pedro that always notices how cute some of the guys on the football team are, and thinks that Mr. Gilligan, the history teacher, is ridiculously hot, and sometimes prefers Jon Snow to Daenerys Targaryen. And sometimes thinks he might – might really like one guy in particular. Maybe even more than he likes Bea. And it always feels like these two separate guys are fighting for who gets to win, and sometimes one of them is more prominent in my head and sometimes the other is. And I keep trying to figure out which is the real Pedro but I can’t and I’m just so confused about everything.”

Balthazar looked proudly at Pedro – that couldn’t have been easy to admit (and he definitely wasn’t wondering who the one guy in particular might be, and definitely, definitely not getting his hopes up).

“Well man,” said Balthazar slowly, “you know, I find that writing songs always helps with working through emotions and figuring stuff out,” he finished, a small smile threatening at the edge of his mouth. Pedro looked up and just laughed, but Balthazar could see some worry in his eyes. “Sorry,” he said. “Not a good time for jokes. Well I can’t tell you how you feel or what you are Pedro, but the way you described it to me sounds like you might be bisexual – have you thought that maybe both those guys are the real Pedro? Like, maybe there’s actually only one Pedro and you just need to figure out how to accept both sides of yourself and not try pushing one away.”

Pedro smiled a little. “That um, that’s pretty good advice Balth,” he said. “Although maybe a little easier said than done.”

Balthazar nodded, understanding. He knew that this had all been a lot easier on him than it was on lots of people – he had just sort of always known, he hadn’t really needed to figure anything out. He was lucky.

“But then if there’s a certain guy that I like, and I still like Beatrice, how does that work? Which one do I actually like? How do I tell?” Pedro furrowed his eyebrows.

“Um, you know it’s possible to have a crush on two different people at a time?” smiled Balthazar. “I’ve definitely had crushes on two people at a time. You just need to figure out if you want to pursue it further with either of them, if you actually can pursue it with either of them – I mean, sorry man, but I’m pretty sure Bea’s a lost cause. Considering we’re here today to set her up with Ben. And I don’t know who the other guys is, but you should just think if you want to say something to him or if you want to keep it as just a crush that you can enjoy from afar,” Balthazar shrugged.

Pedro stayed silent after that. He was staring at the ground and his gaze slowly but surely moved up until he had met Balthazar’s eyes. He opened his mouth as if he might say something. Balthazar’s breath caught in his throat. Then the doorbell rang.

“Shit,” muttered Pedro. He finally looked away and stood to answer the door.

“Hey guys,” said Ben enthusiastically. “What are we playing?”

“Um, Mario Kart,” said Balthazar, his eyes still following Pedro as he took his seat again and picked up his remote.

Ben sat down between them in the middle of the floor. Balthazar rolled his eyes and turned to face the TV again. They played the next game in silence. No one seemed to mind. Pedro was busy considering what Balthazar had said. Benedick was trying his best to focus on the game enough to get Beatrice out of his head (and to win, of course). Balthazar was trying to figure out what Pedro might have been about to say. If Ben was surprised at how easily he won the game, he didn't say anything.

After one game, Pedro stood up. “Okay, I want food, I’ll go see what we have in the kitchen. You guys wait here – the kitchen’s a bomb.”

“Oh, I’m just going to use the bathroom, is that okay?” asked Balthazar.

“Yeah sure – use the upstairs one, the light downstairs isn’t working,” said Pedro.

Then the two of them left the room, leaving Ben sitting there in front of the TV screen.

They both paused outside the living room door, Pedro passing the TV remote that he had subtly taken with him to Ursula, who had snuck downstairs. She pressed a few buttons and then all of a sudden they could hear Bea and Balthazar coming from the TV. Grinning, the three of them ran back upstairs, trying to be quiet enough that they could hear Ben’s reactions. They stifled giggles and prayed that this plan would work better than the last. The last thing they heard before they were out of earshot was Ben making wordless sounds of surprise and calling for Pedro and Balthazar. They also heard Beatrice singing “It’s crazy I know, I don’t know where to go,” but they didn’t get to hear any more.

As soon as they were all safely hidden in Pedro’s bedroom, Pedro whipped his phone out to text Hero.

-Now. –Pedro

-Be there in two. –Hero


	12. FINALLY

Ben was standing, mouth hanging wide open, staring at the TV screen throughout most of Beatrice’s song. At first he didn’t dare get his hopes up that Beatrice could be singing about him, but as the song went on it became more and more clear that she didn’t hate him after all. He had never felt so happy in his entire life (and yes, it was possible that he also feeling extremely triumphant that Bea had embarrassed herself like this for him). He didn’t even hear the back door open, or Hero tell Beatrice that she was just going to run up to the toilet. No, the next thing he heard (during the last verse, while TV Beatrice was singing “I wish you felt the same way”) was Beatrice’s high-pitched scream of anger.

“BALTHAZAR!” screamed Beatrice when she walked into Pedro’s living room to the sound of her own voice emanating from the TV. “I AM GOING TO KILL YOU BALTHAZAR JONES!”

Ben turned around to look at her as the song came to an end, his face a mixture of joy and triumph. Beatrice groaned internally. Great. Now he knew and he would never let her hear the end of it.

“Beatrice, I had no idea you were so hung up over me,” said Benedick, false sympathy in his voice.

“In your dreams, dickhead, that song wasn’t even about you,” retorted Beatrice, determined to deny it as far as her grave. “It was just a song that Balthazar asked me to sing for him. I didn’t write it, he did.”

“I don’t believe you,” sang Benedick happily. “You’re in love with me, you’re in love with me, ha ha ha ha ha Beatrice is in love with me.”

“Oh my God would you shut up? I am NOT in love with you.” Beatrice tried to muster as much disdain as she could into her voice, leaving out all the heartbreak and disappointment for the confirmation that Benedick couldn’t care less about her. She would never let Benedick see any of that though.

Just as she was giving up hope however, more sound started coming from the TV. Thinking the video might be starting again, Ben whirled around to watch it, and Beatrice closed her eyes in shame. But they both got a surprise when this time, Ben’s voice was coming from the TV.

“No no no no no,” said Benedick, his face suddenly dropping. Beatrice looked up suddenly and saw Ben sitting on the grass with Balthazar. Then he started singing. Was it possible – could this song be about her? No, surely not. But the lyrics did sound quite relatable. Who else could it be for? It became clear that Balthazar had had a hand in whatever was going on here. And before long, Benedick was sitting there singing her name, proclaiming his love for her and – strumming a flamingo? How was it possible that she still liked this guy? Not that she was going to show it, of course. It would be far more enjoyable to torture him as he had just been torturing her. As the song finally drew to a close (and Ben whined wordlessly in the corner), Beatrice turned to face him.

“Ah, now I get it, you’re in love with me. You were just hoping that I felt the same way. Which I don’t. Obviously.” Beatrice was finding her tone of voice much easier to control now.

“Yeah right, you so like me,” said Ben, standing up suddenly to defend himself. “You sang a whole song about it.”

“I already told you, Balth wrote that song. I just sang it for him as a favour,” shrugged Beatrice.

“Oh yeah? So why did you look so embarrassed in the video then?” demanded Ben. “And why did Balth sing ‘her’ when he had to take over for you?”

“Authenticity,” said Beatrice, hoping Ben would buy it. He didn’t.

“Oh yeah? So Balthazar wrote a song that included the line ‘nothing much to do’?” Benedick asked sceptically.

Shit. That line was definitely a dead giveaway. Beatrice struggled to recover from that one.

“Yeah well I told him that if I was going to sing a song for him, I would only do it if it - if the song had one of my amazing puns in it. The puns you apparently fell in love with. Because you’re in love with me. You literally just sang a song with the line ‘Beatrice, you’re vivacious, I can’t take this, I love you’. You’re in love with me. Ha.”

But by this point Ben had walked the length of the room so that he was standing directly in front of Beatrice. She may have been struggling with breathing and coherent speech.

“Beatrice?” he asked finally, raising his eyebrows.

“Yeah?” she asked, staring up into his eyes.

“Shut up.”

And then he kissed her. It was like the kiss at the pizza party all over again, except so much better, because now they both knew that what they were feeling was mutual. Now they were kissing because they wanted to, not because of some elaborate ruse to get back at their friends. They were kissing and they were in love and neither of them could remember ever feeling this happy before. Benedick may have actually grinned against Beatrice’s mouth at one point, and Beatrice may have returned the grin.

For a moment, they forgot that they were in Pedro’s house. They forgot that their friends had probably orchestrated this whole thing (probably? Who were they kidding? This had Team Love Gods written all over it). They forgot that they were Benedick and Beatrice and that this was breaking all the rules and that they would never hear the end of it. They forgot their pride and stubbornness and many unresolved arguments. They forgot everything and started making new memories.

Benedick wanted to remember the smell of Beatrice’s hair when she was pressed up close to him. He wanted to remember the feel of her hair in his hands. The way her hands grabbed his shoulder and the back of his neck and held on tight. The small noise she made in the back of her throat when he kissed her.

Beatrice wanted to remember the feeling of Benedick’s eyelashes against her face. His hands, one tangled in her hair, the other on her lower back, holding her close. His breath, rough and broken on her cheek. The way he leaned into the kiss with his whole body.

Neither of them wanted to remember, however, being interrupted by the triumphant cheers of their friends. They were forced to break apart, although they still stayed close – Bea’s hand wresting on Benedick’s chest, his arm around her waist.

“Aw you guys are adorable,” grinned Meg obnoxiously.

“Seriously guys, get a room,” joked Pedro.

“Nice one man,” grinned Claudio, his hand stretching out for a hi-five (which Benedick ignored).

“I’m really happy for you guys,” smiled Ursula genuinely.

“Finally,” sighed Balthazar, rolling his eyes.

Hero said nothing, but her knowing smile was enough to redden Beatrice’s cheeks.

Without responding to any of the remarks his friends were making, Benedick looked down at Beatrice.

“Want to get out of here?” he asked quietly, saying it only to her.

Beatrice nodded. “Yes please, anywhere but here,” she said.

Ben grinned, sliding his hand back around her waist to grab her wrist and pulled her out the door before anyone could stop them. They ran down the road laughing as their friends watched from the window. It wasn’t long of course, until they dropped each other’s hands and started actually racing each other down the road, trying to trip each other up in the process. Team Love Gods just shook their heads. No one would catch them now.

At least they were finally happy. There would be plenty of opportunities to tease them at school tomorrow – provided they didn’t kill each other before then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Urgh okay so that ending was completely cheesy but whatever, it's done and I just want to get it up!


	13. END

Beatrice and Benedick were conspicuously absent from lunch in school the next day – they had been in all their classes, but come lunchtime they were nowhere to be found. Lunch was oddly quiet without the two of them bickering to hold everyone’s attention. For the first time, Team Love Gods actually wondered if they had made a mistake getting Bea and Ben together. Everyone was oddly glum and no one was speaking much.

Hero and Ursula left the lunch table early to get to their lockers before class. Meg left as well to go spend some quality time with Robbie before the bell. Claudio, Pedro and Balthazar were left sitting at their too-big table, Claudio and Balthazar both finishing some last minute maths homework.

Pedro had done the homework the night before and ended up sitting there eating in silence – not something he was particularly happy about. He just wished that he could talk to Balthazar again, alone. Talking to Balthazar openly was always the best part of his day. And he had something he really wanted to get off his chest. Of course he was nervous for a number of reasons – he wasn’t exactly thrilled at the possibility of being rejected again, as he had been with Bea. He was also worried that maybe he was wrong, maybe this was just his mind playing tricks on him and he would hurt Balthazar unnecessarily. But he knew that he had to go for it at some point – Pedro had never been one to sit back and wait. He needed to take action now.

Claudio finally finished his maths homework and left to catch up with Hero at the lockers. Pedro wanted to seize the opportunity to talk to Balthazar, but Balthazar was completely engrossed in his homework.

“Hey Balth,” said Pedro slowly.

Balthazar didn’t even look up. “Unh-huh?” he asked absent mindedly, still chewing his pencil and staring at the question in front of him.

“There was something I um, wanted to talk to you about,” said Pedro.

“Did you get number five?” asked Balthazar.

Pedro sighed and stood up, walking around the table to look at Balthazar’s book.

“Oh yeah, see here,” said Pedro, pointing at Balthazar’s mistake. “If you divide by x here it removes all the variables except one so you can just do it like normal.”

Balthazar hurriedly scribble the rest of the answer down, thanking Pedro.

“Thanks man. Now I just have one left to do – can you help me with it?” he asked.

Pedro leaned over Balthazar’s shoulder – his head was pretty close to Balthazar’s now.

“Um, start by writing it out with all the xs on one side and all the ys on the other,” mumbled Pedro, not really concentrating. Balthazar did as he was told, not noticing Pedro’s close proximity. “Yeah, then simplify that bit,” he added when Balthazar’s pencil stopped moving. He could smell Balthazar’s shampoo now. “Okay, then do the same with the other equation and you can just do them simultaneously,” Pedro pointed at the book to illustrate what he was saying. That drew him even closer to Balthazar. Surely Balth could feel Pedro’s breath on his neck at this point?

Balthazar quickly finished the last question before slamming his book shut and turning around to thank Pedro. It was only then that he noticed how close Pedro was.

Pedro jerked away. “Can I talk to you about something?” he asked.

Balthazar looked surprised, but he nodded and looked expectantly at Pedro, waiting for him to continue.

“Remember I told you there was a particular guy that I liked?” began Pedro, sitting down next to Balthazar. Balthazar nodded. “Well I didn’t know for a long time if this was something I should say or not, I don’t want to mess with our friendship, but it’s gotten to the point in my head where I don’t think I can stay sane without saying it so – Balth, it was you. I think I have a crush on you. Fuck, I know I have a crush on you. I’ve had a crush on you for ages, and I’m only working up the courage to admit it – to myself, even – now, but I just need to get it out. I like you. I really, really like you.”

Pedro took a deep breath, watching Balthazar’s expression which was unreadable for a minute or two. Eventually he settled into a mildly sympathetic grimace.

“Gee sorry man, didn’t mean to lead you on,” he said shortly. Pedro just stared. His heart dropped. Balthazar was rejecting him. Just like Bea had. Why did he keep falling for his friends? Shit. Why had he said anything at all? But then Balthazar’s face broke out into a grin. “Sorry man,” he said. “Couldn’t help myself. I felt like channelling my inner Bea and Ben and getting back at you for all the times I thought there was no way you could ever like me back.”

Pedro just stared, his heart slowly but surely returning to its place in his chest. “What?” he asked, confused.

Balthazar rolled his eyes. “Yeah obviously I like you back,” he said. “Everyone knows that. Ben told you that I like you the other day. I’ve had a crush on you basically since we –”

Pedro leaned over and kissed Balthazar, cutting him off abruptly. Balthazar didn’t object. They shared an awkward first kiss, and an amazing second kiss.

“Finally,” laughed Balthazar. “I literally thought that would never happen.” He grinned. So did Pedro.

“Well it very well may not have ever happened,” conceded Pedro. “I mean, it was only the pizza party that really made me start thinking about how I felt about you – at least, it made me start admitting it to myself, instead of shoving it away. And it made me start caring about the impact I could have on your emotions, and I didn’t want that to be a negative thing. So I forced myself to figure everything out. Really, we have Bea and Ben’s elaborate ruse to thank for this.”

Balthazar grinned. “There’ve been a lot of elaborate ruses to get us here, when you think about it,” he said. “First there our elaborate ruse to get Bea and Ben together. That led to their ruse to make us think they were together and try make us feel guilty. Then there was our second great ruse, to actually get them together that gave us a chance to talk stuff through. Plus my four-year-long ruse of pretending we were just friends. Let’s not forget that.”

Pedro laughed. “Alright so that’s four elaborate ruses I’ve counted so far, were they anymore?”

“Um, not that I can think of,” grinned Balthazar. “But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t come up with more in the future – clearly they work for us.”

“Ooh yeah,” agreed Pedro. “Hmm, I know, we should try and break Ben and Bea up so that lunchtime can go back to normal,” he laughed.

“Err, maybe not,” said Balthazar with a laugh. “I think we’ve done enough messing around in their lives – maybe we should just focus on ourselves for now.”

Pedro smiled shyly. “Focus on ourselves – I like the sound of that,” he said, reaching his hand over and entwining it carefully with Balthazar’s.

“Me too,” smiled Balthazar, giving Pedro’s hand a small squeeze. All Pedro’s doubts had been banished. All Balthazar’s prayers had been answered. They sat there, holding hands, staring into each other’s eyes, making idle chit chat about nothing in particular until the bell rang.

Little did they know that their friends were all standing around the corner watching them, making sure that no one interrupted while Pedro and Balthazar figured everything out. Perhaps there was one more elaborate ruse they didn’t know about that had brought them to that moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaand...I'm done. So yeah quite a bit of cheese there but it is what it is and I'm not changing it now! Hope you enjoyed it :)


End file.
